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RITFUS W. CLARK, D. D. 




BOSTON: 

LEE AND S H E IP A IR, D 

1870. 



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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1670, by 

RUFUS W. CLARK, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Northern 
District of New York. 



STEREOTYPED AT TUE 

BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNI'KY, 

19 Spring Lane. 






CONTENTS. 

»oJ©Sog 

Chapter Page 

Introduction 5 

I. The State and Religion 11 

II. The Bible not a Sectarian Book. ... 22 

III. The Question of Conscience 31 

IV. The Bible in State Reform Schools, and 

other Public Institutions 42 

V. The Bible the Vital Force of the Amer- 
ican Republic 58 

VI. Rome conquering America by a Fallacy. 83 
VII. Our Relations to God on this Question. 97 
VIII. The Division of the School Fund. . . . 105 
IX. Victor Hugo's Estimate of Romish Edu- 
cation. Conclusion 119 



INTRODUCTION. 



The question before us is one of vital mo- 
ment to every American citizen. It relates to 
our individual interests and hopes. It touches 
the heart of our national life. It enters into the 
future of our republic, and bears upon every 
interest, social and religious, that is embarked 
in our perpetuity and success. We would ap- 
proach it, therefore, under a sense of our solemn 
obligation to God. We would discuss it as 
patriots and Christians, bound to give to our 
country and religion every service that can 
strengthen the one, or perpetuate and extend 
the other. 

The attack upon our public schools has va- 
rious phases, all of which, however, aim at 
the same result — the destruction of the system 
provided by our fathers, and cherished by their 

5 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

descendants. The effort that is being made to 
exclude the Bible from our schools has under- 
lying it a deeper purpose ; and that is, to obtain, 
if possible, a portion of the school funds to 
educate youth in principles that are in direct 
antagonism to our civil and religious institu- 
tions. 

This matter is no secret. It is open to all 
our citizens, to all the world. The Papacy, 
that is growing weak in Europe, seeks renewed 
strength on our soil. And it boasts of its future 
triumphs here. Said a Romish priest, when 
commenting upon the losses of the church in 
Italy, "We can afford to let the rags of Italy 
go into the hands of Garibaldi, when we are 
taking possession of the United States." An 
Italian paper says, "The Roman Court expects 
to be able to control the American Republic." 
At a meeting of Roman Catholics, held in New 
York last year, and representing all parts of 
the country, one of the speakers, exulting over 
what had been gained by them through special 
appropriations from the New York legislature, 
said, "This is the little finger, and we must per- 
severe till we get the whole hand." That hand, 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

I believe, they never will get, unless it is palsied 
by apathy. If this people are willing to yield, 
step by step, to the encroachments of that system 
whose word is death to all human freedom, 
whose breath withers human happiness, and 
whose anathemas fall upon all who do not yield 
to its authority ; if Americans cannot appreciate 
the institutions under which they live, or see at 
what a cost of blood, and treasure, and heroic 
daring they were purchased ; if legislatures will 
continue to appropriate the money of the de- 
scendants of our fathers to sustain schools where 
children are taught everything but the love of 
civil and religious liberty ; if Boards of Educa- 
tion, like that at Cincinnati, are ready to vote 
the precious Bible out of the public schools, and 
forbid the use of religious books and the singing 
of sacred songs in the schools ; if Protestant 
ministers and others are ready, at the first note 
of alarm, to give up the Bible, — then the hand 
that the foe is striving to get may be palsied. 
It may lose its vitality, and become withered and 
dead. Then the Papacy may grasp it, and the 
American Republic become the grave of liberty. 
Then the dead may come from Rome to bury the 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

dead. But if that hand is nourished by divine 
truth, sustained by blood that flows from the 
heart of patriotism, — if it retains a spark of the 
energy and force possessed by those who gained 
for us our great national inheritance, — it will 
not only uphold our institutions, but it will defeat 
every attempt, from whatever quarter it may 
come, to destroy the republic. 

The positions taken by those who demand or 
consent to have the Bible banished from our 
schools, are, — 

First. That the state has nothing to do with 
religious education ; that its only and proper 
sphere is to give a secular education to qualify 
its citizens for the ordinary duties of life. 

Secondly. That the Bible, or at least the 
Protestant version of it, is a sectarian book, and 
that the reading of it in the public schools in- 
fringes upon the rights of the Roman Catholics, 
who contribute, through the taxes they pay, to 
the support of these schools. 

Thirdly. That our government is based upon 
the principle of universal freedom, and that, by 
insisting upon having the Bible read in our 
schools, we violate the consciences of the Roman 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

Catholic population, who are, with all others, 
entitled to the benefits of this freedom. 

These are the main arguments presented and 
relied upon by the opponents of the Bible in our 
schools, and reasoned out, as they have been, 
in our religious and secular papers, they carry 
with them an aji-pearance of fairness and justice. 

What we propose to show is, the absolute 
fallacy of these positions, and of every inference 
that has been drawn from them. We propose 
to show that while we do not and cannot tolerate 
the union of church and state, we, at the same 
time, cannot divorce from the state the idea of 
religion, — of some religion, — and that it is the 
duty of the state to provide for the religious or 
moral education of its youth. We shall show 
that our system of public school instruction grew 
out of the desire of the founders of our govern- 
ment to religiously educate the people, and that 
the universal freedom of which we have spoken 
can only exist where the Bible is read and 
obeyed. We shall show that the Bible is not a 
sectarian book, and that to legislate it out of the 
schools in favor of the consciences of the Roman 
Catholics, would be to legislate against the con- 



IO INTRODUCTION. 

sciences of millions of Protestants in the land ; 
that the Bible is essential to our national per- 
petuity and prosperity, and that its banishment 
from the schools would be an insult to God, 
its Author, and peril the existence of our free 
republic. 

We shall also show that to divide the school 
fund with the Romanists would be equally fatal 
to our national interests and hopes. 



THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 



i. 

THE STATE AND RELIGION. 

The idea that a state has nothing to do with 
religion, is utterly, and in the nature of things, 
fallacious. "While we reject the organic union 
of church and state, which involves the contri- 
bution of the State funds for the support of any 
one denomination or class of churches, still the 
State must of necessity have some religious 
character. The framers of State Constitutions, 
Presidents, Governors, Senators or Representa- 
tives must believe in a God or be Atheists. The 
State must be founded upon religious ideas of 
some sort. It must hold some relations to the 
God of the universe or to false gods. 

Our fathers built this nation upon the Bible. 
This sacred volume they placed in the family, 

ii 



12 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

the church, and the school. They knew, what 
every intelligent man knows, that the chief fact 
about any nation and its ruling power, is its re- 
ligion. This permeates all other interests, shapes 
all other institutions ; makes the political, social, 
and domestic condition of the people. Paganism 
makes India and China just what they are, in 
the habits, character, principles, and hopes of 
the people. Romanism makes Italy, Spain, and 
Mexico just what they are. The ignorance, the 
superstition, the temporal desolation, the spiritual 
fetters, the crimes, the wretchedness in these 
countries are the outgrowth of Romanism. Our 
fathers desired to create on this soil a nation of 
which God would be the soul and centre ; the 
radiating point of influences that would shape 
our government, character, schools, families, 
literature, and mould the whole social and do- 
mestic condition of the people. They had the 
sagacity to see that their success in this work 
depended upon having the children and youth 
in the land, educated as God would have them 
educated, in the principles and duties unfolded 
in His Holy Word. If they were to have a 
Christian nation, it must be by the force of 



THE STATE AND RELIGION. 



13 



Christian ideas instilled into the hearts of the 
young. 

Judge Story, in his Commentaries on the Con- 
stitution, says, "It is impossible for those who 
believe in the truth of Christianity as a divine 
revelation to doubt, that it is the special duty of 
government to foster and cherish it amonp; all 
the citizens and subjects." At the time of the 
adoption of the Constitution of the United States, 
he says, "The attempt to level all religions, 
and to make it a matter of state policy to hold 
all in utter indifference, would have created uni- 
versal disapprobation, if not universal indigna- 
tion." 

Judge Duncan, of the Supreme Court of Penn- 
sylvania, in a judicial decision says, "Christian- 
ity is and always has been a part of the common 
law " of that state. "It is impossible," he adds, 
" to administer the laws without taking the reli- 
gion which the defendant in error has scoffed at — 
that Scripture which he has reviled — as then 
basis." 

Mr. Webster made the following declaration 
on this subject: "There is nothing we look for 
with more certainty than this principle — that 



14 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

Christianity is part of the law of the land. This 
was the case among the Puritans of New Eng- 
land, the Episcopalians of the Southern States, 
the Pennsylvania Quakers, the Baptists, the 
mass of the followers of Whitefield and Wesley, 
and the Presbyterians. All brought, and all 
have adopted, this great truth, and all have sus- 
tained it. And where there is any religious 
sentiment among men at all, this sentiment in- 
corporates itself with the law. Everything de- 
clares it. 

"The generations which have gone before 
speak to it, and pronounce it from the tomb. 
We feel it. All, all proclaim that Christianity, 
general tolerant Christianity, Christianity inde- 
pendent of sects and parties, that Christianity to 
which the sword and fagot are unknown, general 
tolerant Christianity, is the law of the land." * 

The Rev. Charles Hodffe, D.D., one of the 
acutest and ablest of American writers, thus puts 
this point : — 

"This country is a Christian and Protestant 
country, granting universal toleration; i, £., al- 

* Quoted by Mr. Stephen Colwell in his Position of Chris- 
tian itj\ 



THE STATE AND RELIGION. 15 

lowing men of all religions to live within our 
borders, to acquire property, to exercise the 
rights of citizens, and to conduct their religious 
services according to their own convictions of 
duty. Turkey is a Mohammedan state, grant- 
ing a very large measure of toleration to men of 
other religions. Most of the governments in 
Europe are Roman Catholic states, granting 
little or no toleration to Protestants. Sweden 
is a Protestant state, allowing freedom of action 
only to the Lutheran Church. What is meant 
by all this? It means that in Turkey the religion 
of Mohammed is the common law of the land ; 
that the Koran regulates and determines the 
legislative, judicial, and executive action of the 
government. Whenever men associate for any 
purpose whatever, they do, and must, associate 
under the control of their religion, whatever that 
religion may be. If a body of Christian men 
organize themselves as an insurance company, 
or as a railroad company, or as the trustees of a 
college, they are bound to act as Christians in 
their collective capacity. They can rightfully 
do nothing as an organization which Christianity 
forbids, and they are required to do everything 



l6 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

which Christianity- enjoins, in reference to the 
work in which as a corporation they are engaged. 
Thus, if a number of Christians and Protestants 
organize themselves as a state or political com- 
munity, they are obviously bound to regulate 
their legislative, judicial, and executive action 
by the principles of their religion. No law in 
this countiy, which does violence to Christianity, 
can be rightfully enacted by Congress, or by any 
State legislature ; nor would such a law, if 
enacted, bind the consciences of the people. 
No judicial decision, inconsistent with the Bible, 
can be, according to the supreme law of the 
land, or morally, obligatory." 

This being a Christian nation, the earliest laws 
that were passed recognized the absolute neces- 
sity of religious education to sustain it. They 
also recognized its necessity to maintain civil 
freedom. 

The framers of these laws saw that national 
liberty could only be intrusted to citizens who 
were under the dominion of rigid moral princi- 
ples, and that only such citizens would sustain 
and perpetuate this liberty. Hence, in the state 
of Massachusetts, all presidents, professors, and 



THE STATE AND RELIGION. 1 7 

tutors in colleges, teachers in academies, and all 
other instructors of youth, were required to use 
"their best endeavors to impress upon the minds 
of the children and youth committed to their 
care the principles of piety, justice, a sacred 
regard to truth, love to their country," &c. 
"And it shall be the duty," the law further says, 
"of such instructors to lead their pupils into a 
clear understanding of the tendency of the above- 
mentioned virtues, to preserve and perfect a re- 
publican constitution, and secure the blessings 
of liberty, as well as to promote their future 
happiness." 

The same principle, substantially, entered into 
the laws which were passed in Connecticut, in 
regard to education, as early as the year 1656. 
It was enjoined upon all the officers of govern- 
ment to see to it that every child and apprentice 
" attain at least so much as to be able to read the 
Scriptures and other good and profitable books 
in the English tongue, and in some competent 
measure to understand the main grounds and 
principles of the Christian religion. In New 
York, and in other states that adopted the free 
school system, the earliest efforts were character- 
2 



l8 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

ized by an earnest desire to promote morality and 
religion as the only safeguards of a firm and pros- 
perous republic.' Governor Clinton, in recom- 
mending the establishment of common schools, 
said, "The advantage to morals, religion, good 
government, arising from the general diffusion 
of knowledge, being universally admitted, per- 
mit me to recommend this subject to your delib- 
erate attention." 

It is clear from the history of the free school 
system of America, that it had its origin in the 
desire to maintain the truths of the Bible in the 
hearts of all the people. The Bible is, in fact, 
its source. Had this divine volume been pro- 
scribed in New York, Connecticut, and Massa- 
chusetts, as it has been in Mexico, Spain, and 
Italy, this system of education would never have 
had an existence. Its blessed results in promot- 
ing public order, general intelligence, social hap- 
piness, and in maintaining our free and religious 
institutions, would never have been experienced. 
To remove, therefore, the Bible and its sacred 
principles from our system of education, would 
be to take from that system its very soul, its life- 
giving power. If it was essential to the highest 



THE STATE AND RELIGION. 



*9 



good of the people and to the prosperity of the 
nation, to form, at the outset, this close alliance 
between religion and education, it is equally es- 
sential now to maintain it. For we are acting in 
this matter not for the present generation alone, 
but for the millions of youth who are, in the fu- 
ture, to inhabit this continent. We are acting upon 
all the forces that this republic now possesses, 
or may ever possess, to bless its own citizens, to 
make it the refuge for the oppressed of all na- 
tions, to defend the rights of humanity in other 
countries, and to spread the influence of God's 
word over the earth. Such a system of popular 
education, having in it so much of divine truth 
and power, and so much of promise for the 
future, the world never saw. There is no other 
such system on the globe, where the pupils are 
so numerous, the expenditures so large, the 
teachers so eminently qualified, intellectually 
and morally, for their work. And, for any of us 
to stand by and see this great system hewn in 
pieces by the foes of God and man and America, 
and do nothing to save it, would show a most 
criminal neglect of the very first duties of a 
patriot or a Christian. 



20 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

Besides, should the enemies of the Bible once 
succeed in legislating it out of our schools, it 
would be no easy task to restore it. For the 
floods of infidelity and atheism would rush in 
and widen the breach, and by mingling with the 
Papal influence, swell the tide of opposition, and 
give to it almost resistless power. Indeed, al- 
ready have infidels and atheists joined hands 
with the Romanists in this war against our sys- 
tem of education. It was so recently at Cincin- 
nati, and it has been so in every attack that has 
been made. 

The words of Washington in his Farewell Ad- 
dress ought to be remembered by every true 
American. He said, "Of all the dispositions 
and habits which lead to political prosperity, re- 
ligion and morality are indispensable supports. 
In vain would that man claim the tribute of 
patriotism who should labor to subvert these 
great pillars of human happiness, the purest 
props of the duties of men and of citizens. The 
mere politician, equally with the pious man, 
ought to respect and cherish them. A volume 
could not trace all their connections with private 
and public felicity. . . . Whatever may be 



i 



THE STATE AND RELIGION. 21 

conceded to the influence of refined education 
upon minds of a peculiar structure, reason and 
experience both forbid us to expect that national 
morality can prevail in exclusion of religious 
principle." 



22 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 



II. 



THE BIBLE NOT A SECTARIAN BOOK. 

The Romanist, in vindication of his cause, 
takes the ground that the Bible is a sectarian 
book, and as such ought not to be read or 
studied in school, where the children of differ- 
ent sects are gathered to receive secular instruc- 
tion. Now, we contend that of all the books in 
the world, the Bible is the most free from the 
charge of sectarianism. What is this book but 
the message of God to man — the revelation of 
the divine will concerning man's duty and des- 
tiny? As such it is not one of several religions, 
but it is the religion — the only true religion in 
existence. In the nature of things, there can 
be but one religion, and that, we believe and 
know, the Bible contains. This has been proved 
over and over again ; proved by ten thousand 
arguments, and tens of thousands of Christian 



THE BIBLE NOT A SECTARIAN BOOK. 2$ 

experiences. And what is this religion but a 
system of pure and momentous truths, that 
brings before us the character and perfection of 
God ; that points out the paths of virtue, honor, 
and happiness ; that throws open the gates of 
the heavenly city, and reveals the joys and 
glories of our immortal state? And does not 
such a revelation concern one mind as well 
as another — one immortal being as well as 
another? 

The Rev. Dr. A. P. Peabody most truthfully 
says, " It is, in the nature of things, impossi- 
ble that there should be more than one religion. 
If any specific proposition, or set of propositions, 
with reference to our unseen relations, be true, 
any other proposition, or set of propositions cov- 
ering the same ground, must be false. If Chris- 
tianity be true, it is not a religion, as it is some- 
times called, but religion. If Judaism also be 
true, it is so, not as distinct from, but as coinci- 
dent with, Christianity — the one religion, to 
which it can bear only the relation borne by 
the part to the whole. If there be portions of 
truth in other religious systems, they are not 
portions of other religions, but portions of the 



24 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

one religion, which somehow became incorpo- 
rated with fables and falsities." 

Flow, then, can any one call the Bible, that 
reveals to us "religion," a sectarian book? He 
might as well call the sun, that shines upon us, a 
sectarian sun, or the stars, sectarian stars, as to 
call this gift of the universal Father a sectarian 
book. It is just as much for all as the light, or 
air, or water is for all. If it is opposed to 
Romanism, it is not because it is a Protestant 
book, but because it is God's book, the light of 
which, if permitted to shine, would sweep all the 
darkness, and errors, and iniquities of Roman- 
ism from the earth. It is so dangerous to Popery, 
that, in those countries where this has the as- 
cendency, a person must obtain a license in or- 
der to have the liberty of reading the Bible. In 
the fourth rule of the Index of the Council of 
Trent we find the following : " Forasmuch as 
the reading of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue 
(that is, in the language understood by the peo- 
ple) has been productive of more evil than 
good, it is expedient that they be not translated 
in the vulgate, or read, or possessed by any one, 
without a written license from the inquisitor or 
the bishop of the diocese." 






THE BIBLE NOT A SECTARIAN BOOK. 25 

The advocates of banishing the Bible from 
our public schools, being driven from the posi- 
tion that it is sectarian, resort to another. Thev 
say that it is not the Bible, but the Protestant 
version, that they object to. In answer to this, it 
has been truly said, that "there is no such thing 
as a Protestant version ; there never has been ; 
it is a mere figment used to cover the attack 
against the word of God. There is a Romish 
version, but there is no Protestant version. 
There is an English version for all who read 
English. The work was begun by Wickliffe 
in the Romish church before the art of print- 
ing. It was reviewed and continued by Tyn- 
dale, Coverdale, Matthew, and others, in the 
same Romish church, before the public protes- 
tations against the errors of that church. It was 
printed, published, and circulated by the author- 
ity of a Romish king. . . . This very trans- 
lation, which, in the main, was that of Tyndale, 
was substantially taken as the basis of the trans- 
lation issued under King James. It was in effect 
adopted by the forty-seven translators employed 
by him ; so that our present incomparable Eng- 
lish translation of the Scripture cannot be called 



26 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

a Protestant translation, but simply the English 
translation, and of such perfect freedom from 
anything sectarian, as between Romanism and 
other sects, that the learned Dr. Alexander 
Geddes — an ecclesiastic of the Romish church 
himself — called it, of all versions, the most 
excellent for accuracy, fidelity, and the strictest 
attention to the letter of the text. The learned 
Selden called the English translation ? the best 
version in the world.' " * 

While this is true, the Romanists have a ver- 
sion which, according to some of their most em- 
inent writers, is full of errors. The Council of 
Trent decreed that the Latin Vulgate should be 
the only authority in the Romish church ; and 
when this was prepared, it was shown by the 
scholars of that period to be exceedingly incor- 
rect. After various changes it was taken in 
hand by Sixtus V., who issued a new edition, 
which he commanded should be received as the 
only authorized version, and read throughout 
the Christian world. Subsequently Pope Clem- 
ent VIII., as infallible as his predecessor, is- 
sued a statement that the edition of Sixtus V., 

* Dr. Cheever. 



THE BIBLE NOT A SECTARIAN BOOK. 27 

called the reformed edition, contained numerous 
dangerous errors. Think of an infallible Pope 
sending forth to the Christian world an infalli- 
ble version of the Bible, in which another infal- 
lible Pope discovers numerous dangerous errors ! 
This edition, in turn, being subjected to a critical 
examination by a man of learning, and an ar- 
dent Roman Catholic, was found to contain sev- 
eral hundred errors. This is now the author- 
ized version, and, like the Douay Bible, is 
adapted to the corrupt doctrines and usages in 
the Papal church. It is quoted by their writers 
as scriptural authority, while it cannot in justice 
be called a Bible. It is, in a great measure, 
the word of Popes and Cardinals rather than the 
word of God. But even this is- not in general 
circulation in the Papal church. They discour- 
age the reading of the Bible in every form. Not 
content with the license system in this matter, 
Councils and Popes have positively forbidden 
the reading of the Bible by the common people. 
When the Waldenses published the first transla- 
tion of the Bible into a vernacular tongue, Pope 
Innocent III. ordered that all their books, most 
of which were Bibles, should be burned. Leo 



28 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

X., Gregory XVI., Pius VI., VII., VIII., as 

well as the present Pope, prohibited the reading 
of the Scriptures. Pius IX. has manifested the 
greatest hostility to Bible Societies, and he views 
with indignation and alarm the present circula- 
tion of the Scriptures in Italy and Spain. 

But supposing that this demand to exclude the 
Bible from the public schools is yielded to, the 
question comes up, What shall be done with 
those books that contain extracts from the Bible, 
or passages that speak in commendation of it? 
Our best literature is so pervaded with Bible 
truth, and quotations from the Scriptures, that it 
would be very difficult to compile a reading 
book, or to furnish pieces for declamation, that 
would be unexceptionable to the Papists. If the 
writings of Milton, Addison, Young, or those of 
our poets, historians, or orators, are resorted to 
for materials for reading books, it would be al- 
most impossible not to violate the principle for 
which the Romanist contends. The work of 
expurgation would have to be carried so far, 
that there would be comparatively little left wor- 
thy of the pupil's attention. Besides, after the 
Roman Catholic was satisfied, the Atheist might 






THE BIBLE NOT A SECTARIAN BOOK. 20, 

present himself, and urge his objections to hav- 
ing the doctrine of God's existence taught in the 
schools. He might point out a paragraph on 
natural or revealed theology in one of the school 
books that offends his conscience ; and on the 
plea that he regularly pays his tax, and thus 
helps to support the school, he might say that it 
was unjust to have his child taught what he re- 
gards a fundamental error. He contends that 
he sends his child to school to learn geography, 
arithmetic, and history ; and for the teacher 
to give to his mind a religious bias in favor of 
the existence of a God, is a direct infringement 
upon his religious liberty. The committee, 
therefore, to be consistent, must expunge from 
the books every allusion to the divine existence. 
There must be no prayer offered up in the school- 
room, for this would be a most palpable acknowl- 
edgment of the being; of a God. There must 
be nothing sung that has the remotest allusion 
to the Deity. This latter measure has been 
adopted in Cincinnati. There all religious 
songs are suppressed, as well as all religious 
books excluded. What is this but the beginning 
of national suicide? We may build up upon 



30 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

this soil a pagan nation, upon the basis of idol- 
atry or blank atheism. We may build up a 
papal despotism, upon the foundation of Popes 
and Cardinals, the Inquisition being the chief 
corner-stone ; but we cannot build up and per- 
petuate a free Christian republic unless we 
make the Bible the foundation. 



THE QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE. 31 



III. 

THE QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE. 

We take the ground that, as believers in the 
Bible, we are under solemn obligations to com- 
municate its truths to the rising generation. We 
believe that " all Scripture is given by inspiration 
of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, 
for correction, for instruction in righteousness." 
Being convinced by the authority of miracles, 
prophecy, and the internal evidences of the truth 
of the Scriptures, — being fully persuaded by 
the social, civil, and spiritual advantages that flow 
from the study of the Bible, — that this volume 
is the word of God ; seeing that it enters into 
the very structure of our government, into our 
courts, legislation, and the development of that 
public intelligence and virtue, without which the 
American republic, as at present constituted, 
cannot exist, — I am bound, as a moral being, ac- 



32 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

countable to God for my influence, to do all in my 
power to make known its truths to every human 
being. I am even bound to send it to the most 
distant nations, that it may educate the ignorant, 
enlighten the superstitious, and lit man for the 
duties of this life and the rewards of the life to 
come. Much more am I bound to give it to the 
children in my own country, where every valu- 
able institution depends for existence upon its 
circulation and influence. Between the Holy 
Scriptures, as the supreme authority, and my 
conscience, I can allow nothing to enter. To 
me the Bible is the higher law in church and 
state, in all the relations of life. It is the basis 
of our state as well as the church. Civil free- 
dom has its roots in its laws, in the virtues it 
inculcates, and can draw its strength and power 
from no other source. But the Romanist tells 
me that he is as conscientiously opposed to the 
Bible as I am in favor of it. His conscience 
prompts him to exclude from the child's mind 
the light of God's word, and introduce in its 
stead the teachings and superstitions of Popery. 
I ask him upon what his conscience is founded. 
Has he exercised his own reason and judgment in 



THE QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE. 33 

matters of religion, or has he avowedly yielded 
them up to the law of obedience to his superior? 
Does he not regard the traditions of men, de- 
cisions of Councils, and the will of Popes, as 
higher authority than the word of God? If, 
then, such a conscience is to be admitted on an 
equality with one, or with millions, as in our 
land, enlightened by divine truth, then we must 
extend the principle still farther, and recognize 
the authority of the pagan conscience, and every 
conscience, upon whatever it may be founded. 
The premise granted, we cannot stop short of 
this conclusion. 

Suppose that in the flood of immigration pour- 
ing in upon our shores there should come a 
company of Hindoos, bringing with them their 
habits and modes of worship. Suppose that, at 
stated periods, they practise their religious rites, 
that seem to us so irreligious and revolting. If 
expostulated with, the Hindoos reply that they 
are perfectly conscientious in their acts. Their 
fathers for ages were in the habit of performing 
these religious rites, and from their childhood 
they were taught that these are duties binding 
upon all Hindoos. Besides, they argue, — 
3 



34 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

First. That this is a land of perfect religious 
liberty, and hence all religions should be sus- 
tained. 

Secondly- They are perfectly conscientious, 
and consider their rites as essential to their peace 
here and their happiness hereafter. 

Thirdly. They have been naturalized, and 
pay their taxes, which, it is true, do not amount 
to a large sum ; yet, on this ground, their claims 
ought to be yielded to. 

Fourthly. Their religion, in this age of tol- 
eration, ought to be respected on account of its 
antiquity, and the millions of minds that it has 
influenced in the past. 

Now, why not admit all this? Why not re- 
spect a conscience that believes in the holy water 
of the Ganges, as much as one that believes in 
holy wells and the holy water placed in church 
fonts? Why not respect consciences that ap- 
prove of having men crushed under the car of 
Juggernaut, as much as those that approve of 
having men crushed under the tortures of a 
Spanish Inquisition? 

Is that a conscience worthy of our respect that 
has prompted the persecutions which have raged 



THE QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE. 35 

against the readers of the Bible in Europe since 
the dawn of the Reformation? Did an enlight- 
ened conscience carry on the wars waged for 
three centuries for the extermination of the Wal- 
denses? Was it the light of this monitor of 
God in the soul that led to the awful per- 
secutions in Holland, and to the battles under 
Philip II. and the Duke of Alva, through 
which the Dutch republic was forced to fight 
itself into existence ? Was it at the holy dictates 
of conscience that the Huguenots in France were 
driven from their homes, cast into prisons, and 
burned at the stake, for the only crime of read- 
ing and following God's word? Yet, what do 
we behold? We see these Bible-men in the 
past wading, as it were, through rivers of blood, 
holding the sacred volume in their hands, and 
resolved to cling to it, whatever else might perish. 
We see in the valleys of Piedmont men perilling 
every interest, and enduring every suffering, to 
keep the Bible in their churches and schools ; 
and yet, in the United States, where the bless- 
ings of the Bible have been long peacefully 
enjoyed, and where its power to develop all the 
sources of national prosperity and individual 



$6 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

happiness has been so signally and triumphant- 
ly manifested, we are urged to have the Bible, 
the word of God, removed from our schools, 
because the consciences of the Romanists are 
opposed to it ! 

But, even allowing that these consciences are 
deserving of respect ; what is to be done with the 
consciences of the Protestant Christians in our 
country? Look at the facts in the case. We 
have in the United States some sixty-five thou- 
sand common schools, containing seven millions 
of pupils, sustained at an annual expense of 
eight millions of dollars, nine tenths of which, at 
least, is paid by Protestants. The President of 
the United States, in his late Message, puts our 
population at forty millions. The highest num- 
ber that the Roman Catholics claim in our coun- 
try for themselves is seven millions. This leaves 
thirty-three millions of non-Catholics. Leaving 
out of view the atheists and infidels, we have 
twenty millions or more of Protestants whose 
consciences demand that the Bible should be 
kept in the schools. Now, the point is, which 
class of consciences shall rule in this matter? 
If the Bible is put out, obviously the consciences 



THE QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE. 37 

of the twenty millions of Protestants are sacri- 
ficed to the consciences of the Romanists. Be- 
sides, they are no longer even on an equality; 
for by this act the consciences of the Romanists 
are respected more than those of the Protestants, 
Then it should be remembered that this clamor 
for the exclusion of the Bible does not come from 
the seven millions of Romanists in the land, but 
it comes from the priests. The mass of common 
people in the Roman Catholic communion, we 
believe, do not desire to have the Bible removed. 
Some, indeed, wish to have it retained. The 
Bible has never injured them or their children. 
It damages Popery ; it does not damage them. 
It has created for them rights, privileges, and 
home comforts, such as they cannot obtain in 
any Papal nation on the globe. Why did they 
come here from Europe, rather than go to Mex- 
ico, or the Catholic republics of South America? 
Simply and solely because they could enjoy 
advantages for themselves and their children 
here, that they could not obtain in any other 
nation. We believe that there are tens of thou- 
sands of Roman Catholics in these United States 
whose consciences have never been troubled by 



o 



8 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 



this Bible question, and who never thought that 
their temporal blessings, nor the final salvation 
of their souls, were perilled by reading God's 
Word. We know that the priests are troubled. 
But we cannot, without more light, see either 
the reason or expediency of sacrificing all the 
other consciences in the land to the claims of 
theirs. 

We have still other classes to deal with in this 
great question of education ; and let us see how 
we stand related to them. In California there 
are several thousands of Chinese, many of whom 
own property and pay taxes. One of them, 
we will suppose, sends his children to a public 
school ; and there, in the reading lesson, they are 
taught that Christ was superior to Confucius, 
and that men ought to worship God rather than 
idols. The children come home and do not 
manifest the usual reverence for the idols that 
are in the house. The parents become offended 
and excited, and soon the whole Chinese popu- 
lation are making war against these schools. 
They declare, first, that the state has nothing to 
do with religion ; that it is a perversion of the 
public funds to give to the mind of a child a re- 



THE QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE. 39 

ligious bias. They declare, secondly, that their 
rights as citizens are trampled upon, and that in 
this free country they are resolved no longer to 
submit to such encroachments upon their re- 
ligion. Thirdly, they say that their consciences 
are violated, and they demand a division of the 
school fund, that their children may be educated 
according to their own views; that is, in the 
principles of idolatry. Now, what shall be done? 
As we deal with the thousands now in Cali- 
fornia, we must, in justice, deal with fifty mil- 
lions of Chinese who might come and settle in 
all our states and cities. 

First. Shall we yield to them the doctrine 
that the state has nothing to do with religion? 
If we do, we shall be the first nation that 
ever existed on the globe, from the time of Adam 
to the present hour, that yielded to such a 
doctrine. 

Secondly. We must acknowledge that the 
state is atheistical. For it must believe in a 
God, or not believe in a God. It cannot, in the 
nature of things, occupy a neutral position. The 
Chinese government must believe in idolatry, or 
not believe in it. The government of the Papal 



40 THE QUESTION OE THE HOUR. 

States must believe in the Pope, or not believe in 
him ; and you cannot have a state without a re- 
ligion of some kind. There never was one, and 
there never will be one on this earth. The gov- 
ernments of Europe are divided into Protestant 
and Roman Catholic. If the government is not 
Protestant, it is Catholic, and vice versa. 

But we are told our government tolerates all 
religions. True, it does. But toleration is one 
thing, and the yielding up of the national life to 
the demands of idolatry or Romanism is quite 
another thing. The Papal States stand or fall 
through their belief, or disbelief, in the Pope. 
The Chinese government stands or falls through 
its faith, or disbelief, in idolatry. The roots of 
the American government run into the Bible, 
and with the Bible our government stands or 
falls. If the Chinese get the majority here, 
they will overthrow the government, and estab- 
lish one in accordance with their religious ideas ; 
ideas that do, and in the nature of things must, 
control the politics, education, and social habits 
and customs of a people. If the Romanists gain 
a majority, they will establish a Papal govern- 
ment. And for one, I think we had better wait 



THE QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE. 41 

until they take it from us, rather than stand 
trembling, and give it to them, while in popula- 
tion we are thirty-three millions to their six or 
seven millions. 

The saddest and most astonishing thing in 
this whole matter is, not that the Romanists are 
seeking to suppress the Bible, for that we ex- 
pect : not that they are laboring to demolish our 
school system, for that we expect; not that they 
would delight to see this continent the grave of 
civil and religious liberty, for that we expect ; 
but the saddest and most perilous thing is, that 
Protestants, in the hour of their strength, and in 
a position of vast responsibility in relation to 
the scores of millions who are in the future to 
crowd this nation, and with the Almighty God 
of the Bible looking down upon them, should 
be ready to take from under the school system 
that, which alone can make it a power for good 
in the republic. 



42 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 



IV. 



THE BIBLE IN STATE REFORM SCHOOLS AND 
OTHER PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 

We next consider the bearing of the question 
under discussion upon those schools that are 
established by the state for the children of pau- 
pers and criminals, and upon the institutions 
for the unfortunate classes in society. In the 
schools connected with almshouses and other 
public institutions, there are thousands of chil- 
dren, who, but for those schools, would never 
have known anything of the Bible, nor felt its 
moral influence. Their parents being vicious, 
or addicted to crime, have left them exposed to 
every degrading and corrupting influence. In 
visiting such schools, it appeared to me that their 
great charm was the religious influence that 
was thrown over the pupils. It was a thrilling 
spectacle to see these poor outcasts thus provided 



THE BIBLE IN PUELIC INSTITUTIONS. 43 

by the state with the bread of life, and trained 
up for usefulness. As an aid to discipline in 
these schools, the teachers find the Bible ab- 
solutely indispensable. Many of the children 
committed to their care, owing to past neglect 
and to the wicked habits already contracted, 
would be beyond their control were they not 
allowed to make use of the teachings of the 
Holy Scriptures. 

In the school for juvenile offenders, which I 
visited at South Boston, I found about sixty 
boys, between ten and sixteen years of age, 
every one of whom had been arrested for crime. 
They were all bright, intelligent-looking lads, 
well dressed, and appeared exceedingly well in 
their deportment and recitations. After an ex- 
amination in their studies, the teacher asked me 
if I should like to hear them sing. Replying in 
the affirmative, the scholars at once rose, and, 
with clear, vigorous voices, and in perfect har- 
mony, chanted those beautiful words, "I will 
arise and go to my father, and say, Father, I 
have sinned against Heaven and in thy sight, and 
I am no more worthy to be called thy son." On 
being invited immediately afterwards to address 



44 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

them, I remarked upon the appropriateness of 
those precious words to their situation, and of 
the willingness of that Father, from whom they 
had wandered, to receive them back to his 
house, to embrace them as children, to call for 
the best robes to be put on them, to rejoice over 
their repentance and return, and to say, in re- 
lation to each of them, "This my son was 
dead, and is alive again ; he was lost, and is 
found." While speaking, I observed that every 
eye was fixed upon me, and every heart seemed 
to throb its response to the sentiment I was ut- 
tering. Now, suppose that, just as I was clos- 
ing, a Popish emissary, chairman of the school 
committee, had entered, and, by the authority of 
a law recently passed, should have positively 
forbidden the singing of any more such chants, 
as has recently been decreed in relation to the 
schools in Cincinnati ; should have taken the 
Bible that was lying on the teacher's desk, and 
announced that it could no longer be tolerated 
there ; should have examined the books, and 
torn out the leaves that contained scriptural pas- 
sages, or extracts from distinguished authors, 
that contained allusions to Christianity, and thus 



THE BIBLE IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 45 

should have taken from these boys the only 
means they enjoyed of obtaining a knowledge 
of the principles of God's word, Could any 
one do a worse thing for them than this? What 
hope of usefulness and happiness have these 
youth, except that which may be derived from 
the religious instructions gained at this institu- 
tion. Yet this Papist would see them grow up 
in ignorance, in the degraded portions of a 
great city, to become, when they reach man- 
hood, the victims of vice and crime, rather than 
see them gathered in this reform school, reading 
the Scriptures, chanting the words, " I will 
arise and go to my Father," and preparing, as 
many in the past have, to become upright and 
honorable citizens. Some may, perhaps, think 
that I am harsh in this judgment. But what is 
the testimony of facts on this point? From the 
most authentic sources that are open to investi- 
gation, it appears that while in England there 
are annually four murders to a million of inhab- 
itants, in Papal France there are thirty-one, in 
Lombardy forty-five, in Sicily ninety ; in the 
Papal vStates, under the immediate watch and 
control of the Pope, one hundred to a million, 



46 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

and in Naples, equalty under him, two hun- 
dred ; that is, just fifty times as many as there 
are in England, the land of Bibles ! 

While in this school, the superintendent in- 
formed me that the Roman Catholic priests com- 
plained bitterly that the paupers and criminals 
of their faith, old and young, in our public in- 
stitutions, had access to the Bible. Although 
the instructions that they there receive, afford the 
only hope that they will ever be lifted from their 
state of degradation and pauperism, and saved 
from the blackest crimes, yet these priests would 
take from them even this faint hope. 

Suppose, next, that the Bible is excluded from 
the school for the blind, which is supported by 
the state. Here are gathered, say, one hun- 
dred blind children, who day by day read their 
lessons by tracing the raised letters with their 
fingers. They become acquainted with geog- 
raphy, philosophy, portions of history, but from 
the beginning to the end of the year their fin- 
gers never light upon the word Bible. They 
never trace out the words, "Believe on the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved ; " never 
read that sublime and stirring declaration, " Eye 



THE BIBLE IN PUELIC INSTITUTIONS. 47 

hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it 
entered into the heart of man to conceive the 
things, which God hath prepared for them that 
love him." Would it not be the greatest cruelty 
to add to the darkness that surrounds this un- 
fortunate class, the deeper moral darkness pro- 
duced by the exclusion of God's blessed word? 
Are the consciences of a class of our citizens 
violated by allowing a stream of light from 
God's mercy-seat to enter their souls, and cheer 
them in their dark pilgrimage, through this 
world ? 

Take also the institutions for the deaf and 
dumb. These have been established in almost 
every state in our Union, at the public expense, 
and come under the same general laws that gov- 
ern our common schools. Who, with one spark 
of humanity in his soul, with the smallest pos- 
sible amount of interest in the welfare of others, 
would advance the idea that this class of per- 
sons should be deprived of religious instruction? 
To those who visit these institutions, one of the 
most interesting features is the progress that the 
pupils make in a knowledge of the Scriptures, 
and their promptness in replying to questions of 



48 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

a religious nature. "Who made the world ?'* 
was the question proposed to a little deaf and 
dumb boy in one of these institutions. Without 
an instant's dela}^, he took the chalk, and rap- 
idly wrote on the black-board, this answer : " In 
the beginning God created the heavens and the 
earth." 

"Why did Jesus come into the world?" was 
the next question. With a smile of gratitude, 
the little fellow wrote in reply, " This is a faith- 
ful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that 
Jesus Christ came into the world to save sin- 
ners." 

The astonished visitor, desirous of testing the 
religious attainments of the pupil to the utmost, 
ventured, at length, to ask, " Why were you 
born deaf and dumb, when I can both hear and 
speak?" With the sweetest and most touching 
expression of meek resignation on the face of 
the boy, the chalk replied, "Even so, Father, 
for so it seemeth good in thy sight." 

Now, shall the Bible be removed from such a 
school on the ground that it is a sectarian book? 
Shall it be banished to meet the conscientious 
scruples of a class of men, who, ever since the 



THE BIBLE IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 49 

invention of printing, have been the bitter and 
uncompromising foes of the Bible? Or shall it 
be excluded on the principle that the state has 
no right to provide religious instruction? If this 
principle is admitted, then the Bible must be 
removed from every institution as well as every 
school that is supported by the state. You must 
remove it from all the institutions for the deaf 
and dumb, and the blind, from almshouses, 
jails, and reform schools for juvenile offenders, 
throughout the whole country. Its banishment 
must be absolute and universal, if you are to 
to have a state without religion. 

We are well aware of the efforts that have 
been made, for several years past, to make our 
prisons institutions of reform. The idea has 
been, not simply to punish the criminal, but to 
save him from the personal disastrous effects of 
his own vices and crimes ; to make of him, if 
possible, a good citizen and a Christian man. 
The agency used in this work of reform, which 
has been attended with great success in many 
prisons throughout our land, has been the 
Bible. 

There is no name more respected than that of 

4 



5<D THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

General Amos Pilsbury, the efficient and suc- 
cessful superintendent of the Albany peniten- 
tiary. Meeting him recently, I inquired if he 
had the Bible in his penitentiary. He replied, 
"We have a copy in every cell, and many of 
the prisoners read it through several times. 
They often express to me their deep interest in 
its narratives and truths, and have said they 
found something new in the Bible every time 
they read it. Several have committed whole 
chapters to memory, and," added the General, 
" the men zvho do the most work in the shofs of 
the -prisons, are those who learn most of the 
Bible." In reply to other inquiries, he stated 
that he had at present four hundred convicts, 
and that he needed the influences of the Bible 
as much for the discipline, as for the reformation 
of the criminals. 

The father of General Pilsbury — Moses C. 
Pilsbury, Esq. — was a strenuous advocate of 
the Bible in prisons. lie was, indeed, the first 
warden of a prison who introduced the daily 
reading of the Scriptures to the prisoners as- 
sembled together, and also the first in our coun- 
try who caused them to earn more than their 



THE BIBLE IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 5 1 

own support. A distinguished writer on prison 
discipline says, " Mr. Pilsbury was the founder 
and head of improvements in our prisons, at 
least in the New England States." Fifty years 
ago he had charge of the prison at Concord, 
New Hampshire, and there introduced the Bi- 
ble. In 1827, he was appointed warden of the 
prison in Wethersfield, Conn. ; and the first time 
that he came before the prisoners, he appeared 
with a large Bible under his arm, and said to 
them, "I come to you with the sword of justice 
in one hand, and the olive branch of peace in 
the other. Every morning you will be assem- 
bled to listen to the reading of a short portion 
of God's word." 

Mr. Pilsbury, being once asked whether he 
could not manage a prison without the Bible, 
replied, " I should as scon think of going to sea 
in a ship without a compass, as to attempt to 
conduct a prison without the Bible." Of his 
course and success the Prison Report for 1828 
thus speaks: "Moses C. Pilsbury, the warden 
of the new prison at Wethersfield, in addition to 
the provision which he makes on the Sabbath 
for public worship, regularly reads the Scrip- 



52 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

tures to the assembled convicts every morning 
and evening, and in their behalf offers prayer 
to the Father of mercies. He is besides faith- 
ful in counsel, and lovely in his Christian sym- 
pathies towards those committed to his care, 
without losing anything in his prompt and suc- 
cessful attention to business and discipline. He 
mingles authority and affection in his govern- 
ment and instruction, so that the principles of 
obedience and affection, flow almost spontane- 
ously towards him, from the hearts of the con- 
victs." 

How completely the mantle of this Christian 
father has fallen upon his son, we all know. 
Nor has his great success been confined to the 
Albany penitentiary. For fourteen years he 
was warden of the state prison at Wethersfield, 
Conn., where he succeeded his father; and in 
1844, Governor Hill, of New Hampshire, thus 
spoke of him in a published article: "The 
younger Mr. Pilsbury has done in Connecticut 
what has been done in no other penitentiary in 
this country — made it, year after year, and 
every year, a source of profit and gain to the 
state, and maintained a more humane, and more 



THE BIBLE IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 53 

effectual discipline in the labors and morals of 
the convicts, than has ever been presented in any 
other similar institution in this country." He 
further adds, these "results, becoming a matter 
of history, have elicited the surprise and admi- 
ration of the world." 

The details of General Pilsbury's success in 
the Albany penitentiary, and the letters of grat- 
itude and thanks that he has received from dis- 
charged convicts for his kindness to them, for 
the religious influence that he exerted over them, 
and even for his firm discipline, would fill vol- 
umes. They present the most conclusive and 
beautiful commentary upon the power of the 
Bible in our prisons. Like two other prisons 
with which General Pilsbury has been con- 
nected, this has been not only a self-supporting 
institution, but the earnings have largely ex- 
ceeded the expenditures. For the eighteen years 
up to October 31, 1866, the earnings amounted 
to four hundred and fifty-four thousand eight 
hundred and two dollars and fifty-three cents, 
while the expenditures were three hundred and 
fifty-six thousand five hundred and forty-eight 
dollars and fifty-nine cents, leaving a net bal- 



54 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

ance in favor of the institution of ninety-eight 
thousand two hundred and fifty-three dollars and 
ninety-four cents. If the consciences of any are 
troubled by the fact that the Bible is used in this 
institution, they may certainly find happy relief 
in the thought that none of their taxes go to pay 
towards its support ! 

Whether they are conscientiously opposed to 
the state receiving a revenue from a prison in 
which the Bible is read, is a point upon which 
they have not enlightened us ! 

The Rev. E. C. Wines, D. D., Correspond- 
ing Secretary of the Prison Association of New 
York, thus writes under date of January 9, 
1870 s — 

Dear Sir : If I had time I could give many 
interesting facts showing the great value of the 
Bible in prisons. It was not until 1826 or 1827 
that much attention was given in the United 
States to the religious interests of convicts. But 
a movement was started then, which, in the 
course of eight or ten years, resulted in estab- 
lishing Sunday schools in most of the state pris- 
ons ot" the country, and in introducing a Bible 
into almost every cell. It had become at that 
time nearly as common to see this Book of 
books lying on the little shelf of the solitary 



THE BIBLE IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 55 

cell, as to see the fastening of the door which 
secured the convict's person. The uniform tes- 
timony of the wardens of that day was, that 
the Scriptures were constantly read by multi- 
tudes of convicts, and that in cases not a few, 
their pungent truths penetrated the conscience 
as a nail in a sure place. In 1865 I visited the 
prisons of eighteen states, and the testimony of 
the wardens, with perhaps two or three excep- 
tions, was, that a large proportion of the pris- 
oners — some said half, others more than half — 
read the Bible with interest, attention, and profit. 
Convicts were reported as reading it through 
once, twice, and even thrice a year. There 
are prisoners who had never read the Bible be- 
fore their conviction, yet who have become, 
since their incarceration, diligent students of it, 
and who put questions to their chaplains, which 
evince an intelligent as well as interested peru- 
sal of its pages. 

I was once at Sing Sing, when good old 
Father Luckey administered baptism to six con- 
victs. At his request I conversed with each 
separately in regard to his religious experience. 
What interested me most in their statements 
concerning themselves was, that three of them 
ascribed their conversion to the simple reading 
of the Bible in their cells. One of these was 
an Israelite, who had never seen the New Testa- 
ment till after his imprisonment. On comparing 
the prophecies of the Old Testament with the 
histories of the New, he became convinced that 
Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah of the proph- 



56 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

ets, and embraced him as his personal Saviour. 
He has stood firmly to that conviction since has 
release. Very truly yours, 

E. C. Wines. 

If the Bible must come out of schools on the 
ground that the state has nothing to do with re- 
ligion, the same principle must drive it out of 
our prisons, and out of every institution con- 
nected with the state. This is the inevitable 
logic of the premise that has been admitted. 
Are there any Protestant ministers or laymen 
prepared for this? Or do any lay the flatter- 
ing unction to their souls, that when the Bible 
is removed from all these schools and public 
institutions, that this is forever to settle the con- 
troversy with the Romanists? Or do they sup- 
pose that by first giving up the Bible, and thus 
taking the religious basis from under the schools, 
they will obtain a better position from which to 
contend with the foe? This is what some of 
them say in the pulpit, in the newspapers, and 
in private circles. 

In the late rebellion in our country, would it 
not have been wiser for the government, at first 
to have recognized the right of the rebel states 



THE BIBLE IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 57 

to secede, and presented them with their choicest 
ammunition, and then gone to battle with them? 
I contend that such a course would have been 
just as wise as that proposed by these Protest- 
ants in regard to the Bible. In the providence 
of God, we are called to the defence of his holy 
word, and we begin the defence by giving it up ! 
How, let me ask, are we to defend the Bible, 
unless we plant ourselves upon its principles? 
If, as we profess to believe, this is God's word, 
is there not a God to consult in this matter? Is 
it for me to say, that the universal Father 
must not speak to the millions of children and 
the unfortunate in our land, through the medium 
of these public schools and institutions, when 
vast multitudes of them hear his voice through 
no other medium? 



58 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 



V. 



THE BIBLE THE VITAL FORCE OF THE AMERI- 
CAN REPUBLIC. 

We now propose to prove the vital connection 
that exists between the Bible and our national 
life. 

We propose to show that in surrendering the 
Bible to any class of persons, we surrender the 
republic with it, and that the two stand or fall 
together. We propose to show that the idea of 
saving our system of public instruction, by re- 
linquishing the Bible, bears upon its face an 
absurdity, and that what is left of this system, 
divorced from moral or religious instruction, will 
be worse than nothing to us ; will be an element 
positively antagonistic to the government, and, 
united with Romanism, eventually work the ruin 
of the republic. 

To understand the connection between the 
Bible and our national life, we need to inquire, — 



THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 59 

First, what kind of a nation are we building 
upon this continent? A nation must have some 
distinctive character. It must rest upon liberty, 
a limited monarchy, or a despotism. It must 
have some religious character. It must believe 
in God, in a pope, or in idols. It is as impossi- 
ble for a state to be destitute of a religious char- 
acter, as to have no political character. Such a 
state never existed on the earth, and never will 
exist. It has been said that we are - inconsistent 
in pressing our national religious claims, and 
keeping the Bible in our public schools, while 
we object to the union of religion and the state 
in Papal governments. Now, we do not object 
to this union. What we object to is, such an 
organic union of church and state as denies 
toleration, or persecutes those who dissent from 
the prevailing religion. We object also to the 
system of Romanism, because we regard it as 
full of errors and corruption ; but it would be 
all idle for us to object to the Roman Catholics 
having a Roman Catholic government. The 
character of the government must reflex, or em- 
body, the character of the people. This is an 
inevitable law of human society. We may ob- 



60 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

ject to idolatry in China ; hut while idolatry is 
supreme in that land, it would be folly for us to 
object to the union that exists between the religion 
and the government of the people. If we can 
overthrow the idolatiy of the nation, then we 
can overthrow the government ; for a change in 
the principles of the people will, by an unalter- 
able law, effect a change in the government. 

Speaking of the time of the adoption of the 
Constitution of the United States, Judge Story 
said, as we have already quoted, "The attempt 
to level all religions, and to make it a matter of 
state policy to hold all in utter indifference, 
would have created universal disapprobation, if 
not universal indignation." We would go further, 
and say that the first step in such a measure 
would have revealed its absurdit}^, its sheer im- 
possibility. For until you find a people without 
any religious ideas whatever, you cannot frame 
or sustain a government without some religious 
character. 

This being obvious, the question then is, What 
kind of a nation are we building up in this land? 
We call it an American nation, based upon politi- 
cal liberty, the religion of the Bible, and the 



THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBEE. 6l 

toleration of all forms of religion. Those are 
its three distinctive and fundamental ideas. In 
order, therefore, to be successful, we must 
Americanize everything that enters into the life, 
or working forces, of the nation. We must, as 
far as possible, cultivate a love of civil liberty 
among- all American citizens, and reverence and 
gratitude to God, who is the acknowledged 
source of this liberty. The preamble of the 
Constitution of New York is, " We, the people of 
the State of New York, grateful to Almighty 
God for our freedom, in order to secure its bless- 
ings, do establish this Constitution." The Con- 
stitution and the laws are established, to secure 
and perpetuate the freedom that comes from Al- 
mighty God. 

If there is a foreign element here, or one an- 
tagonistic to our institutions, it must be Ameri- 
canized, or it will endanger the nation. Slavery 
was an element that could not be harmonized 
with our freedom. When it became strong 
enough, therefore, it attempted to destroy the 
nation ; and at one time it was feared that it 
might succeed. But at a cost of half a million 
of precious lives, and three thousand millions of 
dollars, the republic was saved. 



62 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

There is among us a foreign religion that owes 
allegiance to a foreign power, that in all its dis- 
tinctive elements is hostile to our religious liber- 
ties. It has no faith in the Bible, nor in civil 
freedom, nor in toleration, except for itself. Its 
head at Rome has recently spoken of the "de- 
lirium of toleration ; " as though a man or state 
must be delirious, bereft of reason, to favor 
toleration. 

This element must be Americanized, must 
yield to the spirit of our institutions, or continue 
to be a danger to them. Believing as we do 
that the law of a pure Christianity is the law of 
this land ; that the Bible is the word of God ; 
that the name of Jesus Christ is the only name 
whereby man can be saved ; that confession of 
sin should be made to God, and not to a priest; 
and that toleration should be granted to every 
form of religious faith, while we cling to and 
foster our own national life ; believing thus, we 
should be glad to have our views accepted by 
all in the land. If they are not accepted by any 
class, we must do what we can to infuse them 
into the government and nation, that the Ameri- 
can republic may live, and not die. 



THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 6$ 

It has been a matter of congratulation in years 
past, on the part of many Protestants, that so 
many Roman Catholics were coming to this 
country, that they might thereby be brought 
under evangelical influences ; that we might, in 
the spirit of kindness and good will, offer them 
a "pure gospel ; that seeing arid experiencing the 
temporal blessing of a land filled with Bibles, 
they might be induced to "search the Scrip- 
tures," and discover that the truths and laws 
therein contained, were profitable both for this 
life and the life to come. It seems a very strange 
way to commence this good missionary work by 
suppressing the Bible in the schools, or any- 
where else, on the fallacy that the state has 
nothing to do with religion. I always supposed 
that our hope of converting them rested in God's 
blessing upon his own word presented to their 
consciences and hearts. That its power for good 
has been felt we cannot doubt. Some time since 
the Rev. Dr. Matison gave a lecture in Newark, 
N. J., on the decline of Romanism in various 
countries, in which he stated that, during the 
twelve years between 1840 and 1852, the Catho- 
lics themselves admit that one million nine hun- 



64 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

dred and ninety thousand were lost to their 
church in this country. Of the correctness of 
this statement I have no means of determining ; 
but this we do know, that multitudes have yield- 
ed to the influence of our institutions, and that 
the most effectual agency in this work has been 
our admirable public school system. Hence the 
alarm of the priests. They see that their mem- 
bers are throwing ofF the yoke of a foreign bon- 
dage, and becoming American citizens. And 
the question is, How shall this be stopped? It 
can only be stopped by banishing the Bible from 
the schools, or dividing the school funds, or 
both. But if the funds are given to them with 
which to establish schools, do they propose to 
train up American citizens in those schools? Or 
do they propose to train up adherents to the 
Pope? adherents to a foreign power? 

What we declare to the whole country, and to 
the whole world, is, that the American govern- 
ment is solemnly bound to train up American 
citizens. If this is not the plainest of political 
axioms, then I know not what is plain. If this 
interferes with any man's rights or conscience, 
such a person can retire to Mexico, Spain, or 



THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 65 

Italy, where his rights and conscience may 
harmonize with the government, and with the 
society. 

We are, however, told that even if the Bible 
is banished from our public schools, the children 
can be religiously instructed in the family, the 
Sabbath school, and the church. But every 
one knows that there are multitudes of children, 
in our most highly favored towns and cities, who 
never receive any religious instruction at home, 
and w r ho are not reached by our churches or 
Sabbath schools. At the lowest estimate, more 
than one half of our population are growing up 
without any religious restraints from the family, 
or the services of the sanctuary. The only 
knowledge that multitudes obtain of the existence 
of a Bible is obtained in the public school. 

In 1830, Mr. Flagg, the state superintendent of 
the schools in New York, said, "The immense 
importance of elevating the standard of education 
in the common schools is strongly enforced by the 
fact that to every ten persons receiving instruc- 
tion in the higher schools, there are at least five 
hundred dependent upon the common schools for 
their education." In 1840, the superintendent, 
5 



66 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

John C. Spencer, remarked, that "no plan of 
education can now be considered complete which 
does not embrace a full development of the in- 
tellectual faculties, and a systematic and careful 
discipline of the moral feelings, and a prepara- 
tion of the pupil for the social and political 
relations which he is destined to sustain to 
mankind." 

How, let me ask, is " the careful discipline of 
the moral feelings " to be effected except by the 
teaching of God's word? Has there ever been 
any other way discovered since God created 
man? 

What would our system of education be worth 
under the principles as set forth by the Western 
Watchman, a Roman Catholic paper, published 
in St. Louis. Speaking of the action in Cin- 
cinnati, that paper says, " The much vexed 
question of Bible reading in the public schools 
of Cincinnati is at length settled. . . . The 
resolution of the board is sweeping ; and not only 
is the Bible excluded, but all hymns, prayers, 
and whatever else savors of religion. Books, 
too, in which Christianity is taught, must be re- 
placed or expurgated, and no vestige of religious 



THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 67 

truth can be allowed to disgrace the hallowed 
precincts of the school-room. Protestants, for 
the first time in the history of our state school 
system, are taught that no religion, not even 
that weak dilution of it which we call Puritan- 
ism, is compatible with the well-being of their 
much extolled institution. Our school instruc- 
tion must be purely materialistic. If the name 
of the Author of Christianity is mentioned at all, 
He must be spoken of as one of the men who 
figured prominently in history, as we would 
speak of Mohammed, Julius Cassar, or Napoleon. 
Under no circumstances may we hint to the 
child that the great preacher and teacher was 
God. We mav not even tell him that he has a 
soul, or that there is any code of morality outside 
the statutes of the city and the records of the 
Police Courts. There must be nothing in the 
character or surroundings of our schools which 
might offend a Jew, a Mohammedan, a disciple 
of Confucius, or a common infidel. Our state 
has no religion, and our schools can have 
none." 

What a creed for the United States of Ameri- 
ca ! Blank Atheism ! 



68 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

What possible result can we look for from 
such a policy but the prevalence of atheism ? 

Mr. Webster, in his argument on the Girard 
College case, said, speaking of the exclusion 
of Christianity from that institution, * : There is 
nothing original in this plan. It has its origin 
in a deistical source, but not from the highest 
school of infidelity. It is all idle, it is a mock- 
er}' and an insult to common sense, to maintain 
that a school for the instruction of youth, from 
which Christian instruction by Christian teachers 
is sedulously and vigorously shut out, is not 
deistical and infidel in its purpose and its ten- 
dency." Again, in speaking of the plan of 
keeping the young entirely ignorant of religion 
until they get their education and can judge for 
themselves, he says, "It is in vain to talk about 
the destructive tendency of such a system ; to 
argue about it is to insult the understanding of 
every man ; it is mere, sheer, low, vulgar deism 
and infidelity. It opposes all that is in heaven, 
and all that is on earth that is worth being on 
earth. It destroys the connecting link between 
the creature and the Creator ; it opposes that 
great system of universal benevolence and good- 
ness that binds man to his Maker." 



THE VITAL FOE.CE OF THE BIBLE. 69 

Not a few persons entertain the idea that 
Romanism, in our country and in this age, has 
changed its character, and lost many of its ob- 
noxious features, and much, if not all, of its 
persecuting spirit, and that, therefore, it can be 
safely trusted as an element in our republic. 

Upon these points we can best judge from the 
Roman Catholic writers themselves, and from 
their course where they have full power to 
enforce their views. 

Bishop O'Connor, of Pittsburg, says, "Reli- 
gious liberty is merely endured until the opposite 
can be carried into effect without peril to the 
Catholic world." 

The Archbishop of St. Louis said, "If the 
Catholics ever gain — which they surely will — 
an immense numerical majority, religious free- 
dom in this country will be at an end." 

The Catholic Review, in January, 1852, said, 
"Protestantism, of every form, has not, and never 
can have, any right where Catholicity is trium- 
phant ; and therefore we lose the breath we ex- 
pend in declaiming against bigotry and intoler- 
ance, and in favor of religious liberty, or the right 
of any man to be of any religion as best pleases 
him." 



70 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

Father Hecker, during the past year, has been 
lecturing on Romanism with rather more free- 
dom of speech than the highest Jesuitical art 
would justify. In New York, he said, "The 
Catholic church numbers one third of the Amer- 
ican population, and if its membership shall in- 
crease for the next thirty years, as it has for the 
thirty years past, in 1900 Rome will have a 
majority, and be bound to take this country and 
keep it." He also predicts that "there is, ere 
long, to be a state religion in this country, and 
that state religion is to be Roman Catholic." 
He adds, however, "there will be no danger to 
our liberties, as Roman Catholicism is founded 
on the natural order which obtains in a re- 
public." On this point he evidently does not 
agree with his Papal brethren ; for they say that 
with their triumph, freedom is at an end here. 
And what is the language of history on this 
point? 

In regard to the persecuting spirit having died 
out of Romanism, let us consult the Catechisms 
of Father Perrone, prepared for the instruction 
of the youth in Italy and other countries. This 
father must be good authority, for he is, or a 



THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 7 1 

few years ago was, Professor of Theology in the 
Roman College, and is pronounced by a late 
author the first living theologian in Rome. After 
teaching, by questions and answers, that Prot- 
estantism is " rebellion against Christ ; " that its 
essence is " atheism ; " that its tendencies are 
immoral, as shown in the state of England, &c, 
he teaches that heresy, being a crime against the 
state, ought to be proceeded against by the 
civil power and the Inquisition." He adds, 
however, that " in countries where heretics are 
the majority, this method need not be taken ! " 
On his authority, we may feel comfortable in 
our minds, at least for the present ! ! 

Were we, however, in Mexico, we might have 
some fears. In Harper's Weekly, dated January 
1, 1870, it is stated that the affairs of that coun- 
try are in a very unsettled condition. "At 
Puebla," says the writer, " a mob had attacked 
a Protestant congregation during service. The 
rioters are said to have been led by an ex-im- 
perialist, and urged on by the priests. A number 
of persons were fatally injured, and an endeavor 
was made to burn the Protestants, using Bibles 
for fuel." Notice that this does not occur in the 



^2 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

dark ages, but in the month of December, 1869, 
not in Europe, but in North America. It also 
indicates progress rather than decline in the spirit 
of persecution. I have never read of Bibles 
being used as fuel, before, to burn Protestants. 

The only modification that Romanism makes, 
is to abide its time, in Protestant countries. The 
virtue of patience it is forced, under certain cir- 
cumstances, to exercise. But in its spirit, dog- 
mas, and discipline, it is unchangeable. 

In a work entitled " Romanism incompatible 
with Republican Institutions," by "Civis," we 
find the following language on this point. " The 
Papists declare that their church persecutes no 
longer. The answer is, She has lost the power. 
When has she ever made this declaration when 
in possession of it? If she has, it can be shown. 
In what age has the persecution of heretics ceased 
to be a principle with her, not dependent upon 
times or- upon the caprice of her agents, but 
enjoined always as a positive dut}^. Even 
Scripture has been perverted to answer her un- 
hallowed ends. She passes by all its divine 
maxims of charity, and calls out such texts as 
these — "Compel them to come in." "I come 



THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 73 

not to bring peace, but a sword.' And these 
she uses to her purpose as confidently, as if they 
were direct commands to slay for conscience' 
sake. It is not strange that in an age of refine- 
ment she should disown her barbarism, that in a 
land where a rebuke is ready for oppression she 
should endeavor to gloss her tyranny with a lie. 
It is now her policy to climb up the steep ascent 
from which she has descended, and the mode of 
obtaining power, and of using it when gained, 
are, as is well known, very different. The dawn 
of God's day of Reformation in his church has 
proved a blighting winter to the Papacy. The 
adder lies half benumbed and torpid ; it can no 
longer leap upon its victim ; but the poison re- 
mains beneath its tongue, and its bite is deadly 
still. It is not safe to trust her, to trifle with her. 
If warmed into vigor in the lap of liberty, her 
first blow will be aimed at Freedom herself. At 
least let her submit to lose her fangs, if she can 
do it and live. Let her renounce this right of 
persecution, if she can exist without it. It will 
not be enough for her priests to disavow it. The 
people know them. Let a decree be issued from 
the Vatican, stamped with the time-worn seal of 



74 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

infallibility, and even then let us remember that 
we are but heretics, and it is notorious that the 
church repudiates all obligations to keep faith 
with heretics." 

We may search through Romanism, and we 
can find no materials that can be woven into 
American citizenship. The two systems are 
diametrically opposed to each other. Their an- 
tagonisms appear in every feature and every 
principle. 

" The essential characteristic of the Papacy," 
says "Civis," "is despotism. In Europe she is 
all pomp and magnificence. She there wears a 
regal air ; here she affects equality. Like the 
double Janus, she has one face for the old world 
and another for the new. That which looks 
toward the east is dark, gloomy, and severe ; 
view her from the west, and her frowns are sof- 
tened ; she has caught a trick of freedom, and 
tries to ape republicanism. But her essence is 
t} 7 ranny. It is in vain that she tries to hide it." 

It being admitted that our purpose and work 
are to build up here an American nation, the next 
question is, Flow can this be done ? The obvious 
answer is, Through the church, the family, and 



THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 75 

the school. Every Protestant nation in Europe 
since the dawn of the Reformation has employed 
these three instrumentalities. We must have 
Christian churches, Christian families, Christian 
schools. In regard to the first two, there is no 
division of sentiment among Protestants. Nei- 
ther are they divided in regard to the necessity 
of religious education for the }^oung. The sim- 
ple point is, shall the Bible, as a source of reli- 
gious influence and instruction, be kept in the 
sixty-five thousand public schools in our land, 
where seven millions of youth and children 
assemble for instruction? Supposing that two 
millions of this number are the children of Ro- 
man Catholics, and five millions the children of 
Protestants ; is it essential to the stability and 
prosperity of our republic, that either or both 
of these classes be under the influence of the 
Bible in these schools ? We have already shown 
that more than one half of these seven millions 
receive no religious instruction elsewhere. Ob- 
viously, then, if they do not obtain it here, they 
will not obtain it anywhere. 

In regard to the two millions of children of 
Catholic parents, we cannot see how it is possi- 



7 6 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

ble for them to be qualified to become American 
citizens, believing in civil liberty and religious 
toleration, without a knowledge of that book 
whence our national life is derived. Besides, 
they need its moral influence to train them to 
integrity and virtue, that they may discharge 
their duties as good citizens, and rightly use the 
blessings of freedom. In Rome they can be 
faithful citizens, and meet all their obligations to 
the Pope, without the Bible ; but how, without 
the intelligence and moralitv that comes from 
God's word, can they meet their obligations as 
American citizens ? We may be told that they 
receive religious instruction from their priests, 
and that this cultivates their morals. But is the 
morality derived from this source the right sort 
out of which to make good American citizen- 
ship? In countries were Romanism is supreme, 
what are the moral fruits produced by the re- 
ligion? Take Italy for example, that is directly 
under the watch and care of His Holiness 
Pius IX. The Rev. Dr. Wylie, in his recent 
able work on the religious condition of that 
country, says that there is a complete divorce 
there between religion and morality. " In Italy 



THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 77 

it is religion," he says, "to kiss a priest's hand 
or the hem of his robe, to adore a crucifix, to 
abstain from certain sorts of food on certain 
days, and to pay one's ecclesiastical dues. It is 
a thing of bodily performance, entirely and ex- 
clusively. It has no connection in the mind of 
an Italian with purity, or truth, or love, or rever- 
ence, or any moral or spiritual quality. We 
speak, of course, of the nation in the gross, not 
of the spiritual and Christian men who may be 
found in Italy. We describe the popular notion 
as evinced by the whole course of Italian life. 
As a consequence, Italy presents the somewhat 
contradictory spectacle of being at once emi- 
nently religious and notoriously vicious. Piety 
and profligacy there grow up together. It is the 
greatest criminals who are the most religious 
men. Nor is this anomaly difficult of solution. 
The more the hand is defiled with crime, and 
the more conscience is burdened with guilt, the 
greater is the punctuality of the man in his re- 
ligious performances. The brigand goes fresh 
from his prayers to Mary, to rob and murder. 
'Nowhere,' says an Italian author, 'is the Virgin 
more fervently adored than in the prisons of the 



78 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

malefactors. The first demand made by a new 
comer, on entering the cell, is for a penny to 
furnish oil for the Virgin's lamp ' ! " 

Is it safe for us to rely upon a morality derived 
from this system of religion, as a fit material 
with which to build up a Christian republic? 

In regard to the five millions of children of 
Protestant parents in our public schools, is it 
necessary that they should feel the influence of 
the Bible in these schools? The question re- 
solves itself into this : Is a secular education, 
without the cultivation of moral principles, or 
the affections of the heart, sufficient to qualify 
men to appreciate and sustain our institutions? 
Those who founded these schools decided that 
it was not, and all history and experience teach 
us the absolute necessity of moral instruction, 
not only to make good citizens, but to fully de- 
velop our nature, and qualify us for usefulness 
and happiness. "The whole frame and consti- 
tution of the human soul," says the Hon. Horace 
Mann, "show that if man be not a religious 
being, he is among the most deformed and mon- 
strous of all possible existence. His propensi- 
ties and passions need the fear of God, as a 



THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 79 

restraint from evil ; and his sentiments and af- 
fections need the love of God, as a condition and 
preliminary to everything worthy of the name 
of happiness. Without a capability or suscepti- 
bility, therefore, of knowing and reverencing 
his Maker and Preserver, his whole nature is a 
contradiction and a solecism ; it is a moral ab- 
surdity ; as strictly so as a triangle with two 
sides, or a circle without circumference, is a 
mathematical absurdity. The man, indeed, of 
whatever denomination, or kindred, or tongue 
he may be, who believes that the human race, 
or any nation, or any individual in it, can 
attain to happiness, or avoid misery, without re- 
ligious principles and religious affections, must 
be ignorant of the capacities of the human soul, 
and of the highest attributes in the nature of 
man." 

Professor Stowe, in his Report on Elementary 
Instruction in Europe, says, — 

" In regard to the necessity of moral instruc- 
tion and the beneficial influence of the Bible in 
schools, the testimony was no less explicit and 
uniform. I inquired of all classes of teachers, 
and men of every grade of religious faith, in- 



80 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

structors in common schools, high schools, and 
schools of art, of professors in colleges, univer- 
sities, and professional seminaries, in cities and 
in the country, in places where there was a uni- 
formity and in places where there was a diversity 
of creeds, and I never found but one reply ; and 
that was, to leave the moral faculty uninstructed 
was to leave the most important part of the hu- 
man mind undeveloped, and to strip education 
of almost everything that can make education 
valuable ; and that the Bible, independently of 
the interest attending it, as containing the most 
ancient and influential writings ever recorded by 
human hands, and composing the religious sys- 
tem of almost the whole of the civilized world, 
is, in itself, the best book that can be put into 
the hands of children to interest, to exercise, and 
to unfold their intellectual and moral powers. 
Every teacher whom I consulted repelled with 
indignation that moral instruction is not proper 
for schools, and spurned with contempt the alle- 
gation that the Bible cannot be introduced into 
common schools without encouraging a sectarian 
bias in the matter of teaching — an indignation 
and contempt which I believe will be fully 



THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 8l 

participated in by every high-minded teacher 
in Christendom." 

Besides the necessity of moral culture in every 
good system of education, it is vital to the end 
that we have in view in our schools, which is, 
the making of good American citizens. It is 
not, as some contend, the primary object of these 
schools to make simply successful shopkeepers, 
or merchants, or mechanics. They were not 
founded mainly to teach arithmetic, geography, 
and penmanship, but to raise up moral, intellect- 
ual, industrious citizens, who would, by their 
influence, labor, and votes, sustain a republic 
founded upon civil liberty, and a religious faith 
derived from the Bible. As distinctly as a the- 
ological seminary exists to train up learned and 
pious ministers, or a medical school is designed 
to raise up skilful physicians, or a law school to 
qualify men for the legal profession, our common 
schools exist to qualify men to be American citi- 
zens. And if they fail in this, whatever else 
they accomplish, they fail of the end for which 
they were established. A Christian nation must, 
in some way, provide for a Christian education, 
or perish. If any one can prove that this is not 
6 



82 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

a Christian nation, that our institutions do not 
rest upon the Bible, then we give up the argu- 
ment. But if, in the nature of things, a govern- 
ment must have some religious character, and 
if ours derived its religious character from the 
Bible, then that which created this government 
and nation, must sustain them. 

Another position that we take is, that the ex- 
istence of Roman Catholics, Jews, infidels, and 
multitudes who are indifferent to all religion in 
the land, is a most potent reason why the Bible 
should be kept in the schools, rather than a rea- 
son why it should be taken out. And the more 
these classes multiply, the more the reasons for 
keeping the Bible in, multiply. For the great 
medium through which we reach these classes 
with ideas and influences essential to qualify 
them to become good American citizens, is the 
public school system. We reach them in a 
slight degree through other instrumentalities — 
through our churches, Sabbath schools, and mis- 
sionary enterprises ; but our great hope in the 
work of enlightening, Christianizing, and Amer- 
icanizing these masses, is through the system of 
public instruction founded by our fathers. If 



THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 83 

the Bible is taken from these schools, and all 
religious and moral instruction suppressed, and 
the millions of voices that have been accustomed 
to sing religious songs are hushed, we relinquish 
the greatest power that Almighty God has placed 
in our hands to mould aright the elements that en- 
danger the republic. Instead of thereby saving 
civil liberty, we take the first great step towards 
its destruction. Instead of preserving religious 
toleration, we pave the way for intoleration. In- 
stead of strengthening the state, we demolish 
one of its main pillars, and encourage the foes 
of liberty and the Bible to go on until every 
pillar is shattered, and the whole fabric, which 
has been so long our boast and glory, is level 
with the ground. 

Or to divide the school fund would be just as 
fatal. For this would be virtually saying to the 
Roman Catholics, You can retain your allegiance 
to a foreign power, and yet be good American 
citizens. You can educate your children in a 
system that is in antagonism to republicanism, 
and derive the funds for this from a republican 
government. "The taxes that you pay to support 
the American government that gives to you 



84 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

protection and toleration, you may receive back 
again, to use for the purpose of undermining 
that government. For why do they ask for a 
division of the funds, except that they may teach 
principles contrary to those now taught in our 
schools? If our schools are in harmony with 
the government, theirs will not be. For they 
already acknowledge that their consciences are 
not in harmony with the principles of our gov- 
ernment. And how can they be when they owe 
allegiance to the government of Rome? They 
cannot serve two masters, and I apprehend they 
do not strive very hard to do it. 

Then, if we divide the funds with the Roman 
Catholics, we must, in order to be consistent, 
divide, on a basis of taxation or population, with 
all who differ from our fathers and from us. We 
must ascertain precisely what taxes the Jews 
pay, and what the infidels, and atheists, and the 
Chinese in California pay, and divide with each, 
that each class may have their separate schools. 
Then, to preserve our national independence, 
and our religious toleration, we must have 
schools where the children are taught by the 
state that Jesus Christ has not yet come into the 



THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 85 

world. We must have others based upon infi- 
delity and atheism, and others in which idols are 
set up for worship. After all this is done, can 
we pray to God to prosper the republic, to 
preserve our blessed institutions, and to make 
us faithful to posterity, as our fathers were faith- 
ful to us? 

Consider, next, the positively demoralizing 
influence of having the Bible banished from the 
schools upon the pupils now in attendance, and 
upon the multitudes who are to fill this land in 
years to come. 

Seven millions of youth, who have been ac- 
customed to hear a portion of the Bible read, or 
a prayer offered, or to read or declaim pieces 
containing favorable allusions to the Bible, or 
who have been accustomed to sing spiritual 
songs, are informed that the Bible and all its 
accessories are driven from the schools. Even 
the singing, which has been such an attraction in 
the school-room, and which has thrown its hal- 
lowed influence over the social life, and studies, 
and has been a means of religious culture, is 
from this hour forever suppressed. What will 
be the reflections of these youth upon such an 



86 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

act? Will they reverence a book that has thus 
been proscribed by the nation? Will they be 
attracted by its truths, its solemn commands, its 
divine system of morals, when they learn that it 
is not tolerated in the schools they attend ? Will 
it be natural for them to have the fear of God 
before their eyes, when they learn that it is 
against the laws of the land, to have a prayer 
offered up for the divine blessing upon their 
studies? What will be the effect upon their feel- 
ings of gratitude and praise to God, to know 
that they cannot unite in singing a single re- 
ligious hymn in their schools? This negative 
policy, as some may term it, cannot fail to have 
the most positively disastrous effect upon the 
pupils. It educates them to disregard what the 
government disregards. It educates them in 
the fatal fallacy that the state has nothing to do 
with religion, and is in no way dependent for its 
stability or prosperity upon religion. It leads 
them to infer that if it is expedient and safe to 
have a school without a God, it is equally ex- 
pedient and safe to have the family and society 
without a God. 

The whole influence of the measure is to train 



THE VITAL FORCE OF THE BIBLE. 87 

up infidels and atheists. Nor will it be long be- 
fore the discovery is made, that those who have 
yielded up the Bible to Romanism, have virtually 
yielded it up to atheism. See the adroitness of 
the foe ; see how he gains more than he bar- 
gained for. He has shut off the light of God's 
word from the two million Catholic children in 
the schools, and at the same instant shut off the 
same precious light from the five million Protes- 
tant children. Yielding to his conscience, his 
rights, his system, we sacrifice our own. 



88 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 



VI. 

ROME CONQUERING AMERICA BY A FALLACY. 

With what joy would the great council, now 
in session at Rome, receive these glad tidings ! 
And in the secret interviews of the cardinals 
and bishops, what opinions would they be like- 
ly to express of the intelligence, sagacity, or 
manhood of the millions of Protestants in Amer- 
ica, who have been caught in such a trap? 
The}'' might say that "it cost us armies, and 
blood, and treasure, to save France from the 
Huguenots. Three centuries of persecution 
and war have not wrested the Bible from the lit- 
tle band of Waldenses. The Hollanders con- 
quered us when we were mighty, and have kept 
the Bible in their schools. But America, in the 
hour of her strength and glory, we have taken 
by a fallacy. We told them that they had a 
state without a religion, and they believed^ it! 



ROME CONQUERING AMERICA. 89 

Nay, more, Protestant ministers came forward 
to help prove it ! We also told them that, as a 
logical sequence, they must have a school sys- 
tem without a religion, and they believed that 
too." These gentlemen might quietly add, 
" We have struck the American republic the 
heaviest blow that it has ever received. Slavery 
fought their national liberty, and they conquered. 
We assail their religion, and they yield without 
a struggle. We have burned Bibles by the hun- 
dreds in the past, America delivers them up to 
us by the tens of thousands. Our emissaries 
stand at the doors of sixty-five thousand schools, 
and receive them from two hundred thousand 
teachers." They then go to the reform schools, 
almshouses, institutions for the blind, the deaf 
and dumb, that are supported out of the public 
treasury, and take the Bibles from all these. 
They then go to the jails and prisons scattered 
over the land, and remove the Bibles from the 
chaplains' desks and from every cell, and de- 
stroy, at a single blow, the great reformatory 
system among prisoners that American philan- 
thropists and prisoners' friends have toiled for 



90 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

fifty years to build up. They may then write 
over every prison door, and upon every reform 
school, and every institution for the blind, and 
deaf, and dumb, and every public school in 
every village, town, and city from Maine to 
Florida, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, — 

"a state without religion." 

Henceforth, Romanism, infidelity, and athe- 
ism walk together. They unite in hostility to 
the Bible, and consequently in hostility to insti- 
tutions founded upon the Bible. Can we with- 
stand these combined forces acting against the 
religion and the principles of honesty, integrity, 
and virtue, which constitute the only possible 
basis of free institutions? 

With all the moral influence that we now have 
in the country from the Bible, we are constantly 
hearing of the perils that threaten our national 
existence. At every great election we are told 
of fraudulent votes cast by tens of thousands of 
"citizens," who are destitute of the elements that 
are essential to American citizenship. Every 
winter we are informed of the fearful corruption 
that prevails in our legislative bodies, and that, 



ROME CONQUERING AMERICA. QI 

unless this evil is remedied, the most fatal con- 
sequences will ensue. Our attention is repeatedly 
called to the appalling absence of justice from 
many of our courts of justice, and to numerous 
instances of false swearing upon the Bible, by 
men, upon whose souls the promises or warnings 
of this volume make no impression. 

If, then, the perils are, by universal acknowl- 
edgment, so great with the moral power that the 
Bible now gives us, what must inevitably be our 
condition with this power removed from our sys- 
tem of public instruction ? 

Then consider with what forces Rome is to- 
day prepared to enter the breach made in our 
walls by the fallacy she has imposed upon us. 

Twenty-five years ago the Romanists in this 
country were as one to twenty-five of our popu- 
lation ; they are now said to be as one to six. 
and a half. In 1830 there were four hundred 
and fifty thousand ; in 1840, nine hundred and 
sixty thousand ; in i860, four millions ; now 
about seven millions. According to govern- 
mental returns, Roman Catholics double here 
once in ten years. 

Seventy-five years ago there was not a Ro- 



92 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

man Catholic bishop in this country. Now 
there are seven archbishops, forty-one bishops, 
seventy-two seminaries, fourteen hundred schools, 
three thousand churches, with property estimated 
at forty million dollars. 

In New York city, Romanists hold almost 
every civil office. The sheriff, register, comp- 
troller, city chamberlain, corporation counsel, 
commissioner, president of the Croton board, 
president of the board of aldermen, president of 
the board of councilmen, clerk of the common 
council, clerk of the board of supervisors, five 
justices of the courts of record, all of the civil 
justices, all but two of the police justices, all of 
the police court clerks, three out of four of the 
coroners, two members of Congress, three out 
of five of state senators, eighteen out of twenty 
of members of Assembly, fourteen out of nine- 
teen of the common council, and eighteen of the 
supervisors, are said to be Roman Catholics. 

Priest Hecker said, in a public lecture, "We 
number seven millions in this country, and in 
fifteen years we will take this country, and build 
our institutions over the grave of Protestantism." 

The city of New York gave one hundred and 



ROME CONQUERING AMERICA. 93 

fifteen thousand dollars to Romanists, and prop- 
erty, valued at two million dollars, on Fifth Av- 
enue, for a cathedral. The common council, I 
am informed, recently remitted eight thousand 
dollars tax on a Catholic church, and refused to 
remit eight hundred dollars on a Protestant 
church. 

A cathedral is now being built in Brooklyn at 
a cost of two million dollars. 

At the last session of the New York legisla- 
ture (1869), a bill was suddenly introduced, just 
at the close of the session, making an appropri- 
ation for children of schools in New York city, 
"for whom the public schools do not provide." 
The appropriation of two hundred and fourteen 
thousand nine hundred and twenty-eight dollars 
has recently been distributed among fifty-three 
schools, most of which were sectarian. Of these 
twenty, Protestant, English and German, and 
Jewish schools received forty-three thousand 
two hundred and ninety-eight dollars. The 
remaining thirty-three were Roman Catholic 
schools, which received one hundred and seven- 
ty-one thousand six hundred and thirty dollars, 
or eighty fer cent, of the whole. 



94 



THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 



With all the strength presented in these facts, 
and others of a similar character that might be 
added to them, we have little to fear, provided 
the Protestants are united. For, to set against 
these statistics, we have in the United States a 
non-Roman Catholic population of thirty-three 
millions. We have fifty-four thousand Protes- 
tant churches, and fiftv-two thousand Protestant 
ministers, with nearly four millions of youth and 
children in our Sabbath schools. Our churches, 
for the year closing last May (1869), contributed 
about twelve million dollars for charitable and 
benevolent purposes.* 



* The following are the receipts of our 
olent societies for the year, ending April, 

American Bible Society, . 
Mission Society of Meth. Epis. Church, 
American Board of Com. for For. Miss. 
American Tract Society, . 
American Sunday School Union, 
Pres. Board of Foreign Miss. (O. S.), 
American Missionary Association, . 
American Baptist Pub. Society, 
American Home Missionary Society, 
Pres. Board of Dom. Missions (O. S.), 
Pres. Com. Home Miss. (N. S.), 
Pres. Board of Publication (O. S.), 
American Baptist Home Miss. Society, 



prominent benev- 
1869 : — 

$771-734 93 
600, SS6 65 
535,838 95 
488,023 02 
404,151 44 
338,498 00 

357,9*8 81 
272,160 63 

2 44>39° 9 6 
177,666 22 
162,420 S2 
146,877 78 
144,032 05 



ROME CONQUERING AMERICA. 95 

With this numerical strength, with God's 
blessing upon our Christian efforts, our country 
can be saved. But the day that virtue and in- 
telligence in the rising generation are weakened 
by the removal of the Bible from our schools, 
or the day that the public school fund is divided, 
and the state commences the work of training up 
enemies of civil freedom and religious toleration, 
that day the power of Romanism in the United 
States will be trebled or quadrupled. 

At the beginning of our late war, the great- 
est fear we had was a divided north. With a 
united north we were sure to conquer. In the 
conflict that is now opening, our greatest source 
of fear is a divided Protestant community. 
Moving together with the Bible in our hands, 
Christian love in our hearts, and faith in God in 
our souls, we are sure to win. But whatever may 



Prot. Episcopal Board of Dom. Miss., 
American Tract Society, Boston, 
American Church Missionary Society, 
American and Foreign Christian Union, 
Board of For. Mis. of Reformed Church, 
Prot. Epis. Board of Foreign Missions, . 
Pres. Com. of Publication (N. S.), 
Pres. Com. Church Erec. (N. S.), . 
American Congregational Union, . 



138,367 56 
131,947 68 

U3>448 39 
112,057 31 
91,990 87 
64,379 69 
66,214 68 
54.996 00 
52,895 73 



96 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

happen, let us not be beguiled, befooled, stulti- 
iied by the sophistries of the enemy ! Let not 
history record the humiliating fact, that in the 
year 1870 Rome conquered the United 
States of America by a fallacy. 



RELATIONS TO GOD ON THIS QUESTION. 97 



VII. 

OUR RELATIONS TO GOD ON THIS QUESTION. 

If we consent, for any reasons whatever, to 
have the Bible removed from the schools and 
institutions supported by the state, how do we 
stand related, in this action, to the Supreme Be- 
ing, whom we believe to be the Author of this 
book? I ask this question as an American citi- 
zen. I ask it, believing that a nation is just as 
dependent for its stability and prosperity upon 
God as the Christian Church is. I ask it with 
the inspired words of God's book sounding in 
my ears, " For the nation and kingdom that will 
not serve thee shall perish ; yea, those nations 
shall be utterly wasted." Will it be serving God 
to remove from seven or eight millions of our 
youth the moral light and instructions of his holy 
word? This measure he must approve, or dis- 
approve, or be indifferent to it. To suppose 

7 



98 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

that the "Being who notices the fall of a sparrow, 
and numbers the hairs of our head, is indiffer- 
ent to it, is an idea that no enlightened mind 
can entertain for a moment. If he approves of 
the measure, it can only be on the ground that 
it is necessary to the safety of the school system 
or the republic. But how can he regard the 
safety or efficiency of a system of instruction, 
founded to sustain a Christian republic, increased 
by the withdrawal of his own divine instruc- 
tions, which are addressed to every member of 
the human family, and which constitute the 
vital forces of that republic? He has said, 
through his Son, "Blessed are they that hear 
the word of God, and keep it." Does this apply 
to all except the millions of youth under con- 
sideration? Nothing, certainly, can be clearer, 
than that this measure, if adopted, will meet the 
most signal disapprobation of the divine Author 
of the Bible. Viewing these youth as individ- 
ual members of society, or as destined to become 
citizens of the state, or regarding them in any 
of the relations of life, they need the teaching 
of God's word, paramount to all other teaching. 
To deny this is to treat the divine command 



RELATIONS TO GOD ON THIS QUESTION. 99 

with contempt, and to bid defiance to the Al- 
mighty. 

God founded our nation as truly as he founded 
the kingdom of Israel ; and the language that 
he addressed to his ancient people through his 
servant Moses headdresses to us: rf Behold, I 
have taught you statutes and judgments. . . . 
Keep, therefore, and do them ; for this is your 
wisdom and your understanding in the sight of 
the nations which shall hear all these statutes, and 
say, Surely this great nation is a wise and under- 
standing people. . . . Only take heed to thy- 
self, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou for- 
get the things which thine eyes have seen, and 
lest they depart from thy heart, all the days of 
thy life ; but teach them to thy sons and thy sons' 
sons. . . . These words which I command 
thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou 
shalt teach them diligently to thy children." 
(Deut. iv.-vi.) Can any one prove that these 
commands have a local application, or have 
been abrogated? 

The Bible is the book for all nations — for the 
world. Its principles constitute the basis of 
every free, just, and prosperous government. 



IOO THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

Its light illumines the conscience. It creates 
and sustains the doctrine of human rights. It 
is as intimately connected with the growth and 
destiny of nations as with the development of 
individual character and happiness. 

"For more than a thousand years," says Cole- 
ridge, "the Bible, collectively taken, has gone 
hand in hand with civilization, science, law — in 
short, with the moral and intellectual cultivation 
of the species, always supporting, and often lead- 
ing the way. Its very presence, as a believed 
book, has rendered the nation emphatically a 
chosen race ; and this, too, in exact propor- 
tion as it is more or less generally known and 
studied. Of those nations which in the highest 
degree enjoy its influences, it is not too much 
to affirm that the differences, public and private, 
physical, moral, and intellectual, are only less 
than what might be expected from a diversity of 
species. God and holy men, and the best and 
wisest of mankind, the kingly spirits of history, 
enthroned in the hearts of mighty nations, have 
borne witness to its influences, have declared it 
to be beyond compare the most perfect instru- 
ment, the only adequate organ, of humanity." 



RELATIONS TO GOD ON THIS QUESTION. IOI 

This being true, shall there be a spot in this 
Christian land from which the word of God, the 
source of civilization, and of all our valued in- 
stitutions, is excluded by law ? While we are filled 
with rejoicing that God, in his merciful provi- 
dence, is opening the gates of Italy, Spain, Aus- 
tria, as well as other nations, to receive the Bible, 
and evangelists and colporteurs are traversing 
those countries, and meeting with great encour- 
agement in the distribution of the sacred Scrip- 
tures, shall we, by the authority of the govern- 
ment in these United States, close the doors of 
sixty-five thousand schools against it? 

While prisons in Papal countries are being 
emptied of the faithful disciples of Jesus, who 
have been confined there for reading God's 
word, shall we make it a criminal offence for a 
teacher of a public school to read in the morning 
a chapter or a verse from the Bible? Shall the 
boards of education and the school committees 
require of the three hundred thousand teachers, 
more or less, of our public schools, the solemn 
pledge that they will never read the Bible in the 
schools, nor exert any moral influence over the 
pupils, except such a moral influence as is en- 



102 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

tirely discojincctcd with religion ? Shall these 
teachers be put to the task of dealing out, to 
preserve the discipline of the school, occasion- 
ally small quantities of morality, after having 
carefully examined said small quantities of mo- 
rality, to see that there is no religion in them, 
and nothing that may produce a religious bias in 
the mind of the pupil? Ought not the wisest 
philosophers who can be found, be first put to 
the task of constructing a system of morality in 
which there shall be no traces of religion? Let 
them succeed in creating a sun without any 
light in it, and then they may succeed in this. 
There is in Papal countries a morality without 
religion. Would this answer? 

It is difficult to conceive of a more humiliating 
spectacle than that of Protestant Christians in 
America who profess to believe in a God, and who 
have vowed before angels and men to serve him, 
and especially to be true to him when the honor 
of his name or the interests of his kingdom are 
assailed, bowing down in the dust before Ro- 
manism, and surrendering up the Bible to it, in 
an hour when God has conferred upon them 
greater power and facilities for extending its 



RELATIONS TO GOD ON THIS QUESTION. IO3 

elevating and saving influence over the world, 
than he ever bestowed upon any other nation ! 
This spectacle is not only most humiliating, but 
it is fraught with the most alarming dangers to 
the republic. It places the author of the Bible 
against us. In attempting to reconcile the Pope 
of Rome, we lose the God of heaven. And 
when we gain the Pope, we lose our country. 
For why does he ask, through his bishops and 
priests, that we take the Bible from the schools? 
Why his deeply-laid plots against our institu- 
tions? He desires America that he may tread 
under his heel its civil freedom ; that he may 
cure its " delirium of toleration : " that he may 
take possession of its vast resources and treas- 
ures ; that he may extinguish its light that is 
breaking into the darkness of his dominions ; 
that he may be in a position to give us in ex- 
change for our blessed and glorious institutions 
— the Inquisition ! 

On a question so vital and momentous as 
that now before the American people, "it is 
better to trust in the Lord than to put confi- 
dence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord 



104 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

than to put confidence in princes." (Ps. cxviii. 
8, 9.) For we have the divine promise, "They 
that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, 
which cannot be removed, but abideth forever." 
(Ps. cxxv. 1.) 



THE DIVISION OF THE SCHOOL FUND. IO5 



VIII. 

THE DIVISION OF THE SCHOOL FUND. 

In considering this claim, which comes from 
the Romish bishops and priests, and their allies, 
it is of the first importance that we understand 
the civil relations of these ecclesiastics to our 
government. 

In a controversy with Bishop Hughes, of 
New York, held some years since, the bishop 
said, "We come here denied of our rights." He 
claimed that the Protestants, by refusing to divide 
with them the public school fund, deprived them 
of their civil rights. The question is, What are 
their rights? Do they owe allegiance to the 
Pope of Rome, or to the government of the United 
States? Can they point us to a single bishop 
of their church, in America, who ever took the 
oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the 
United States? 



106 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

After diligent inquiries made of gentlemen of 
the legal profession, and of others, I have not 
been able to learn of a single instance of this 
character. Indeed, their civil as well as eccle- 
siastical relations to their head of Rome, posi- 
tively forbid this. At their consecration, they 
swear allegiance to his Holiness the Pope of 
Rome, from whom they receive their official 
position, and which they retain on condition of 
absolute obedience to him. They also swear 
that they will do all in their power to destroy 
heretics. The language in the "Form of Oath" 
(p. 63) is as follows : — 

" Heretics, schismatics, and rebels against the 
same our lord (the Pope) and his successors, 
I will persecute and fight against, to the utmost 
of my power." 

A Jesuit, in his oath of allegiance to the Pope, 
says, "I do renounce and disown any allegiance 
as due to any heretical king, prince, or state 
named Protestant, or obedience to any of their 
inferior magistrates or officers. I do further de- 
clare that the doctrine of the church of England, 
of the Calvinists, Huguenots, and of other Prot- 
estants, is damnable, &c. ... I do further 



THE DIVISION OF THE SCHOOL FUND. IO7 

declare, that I will help, assist, and advise 
all or any of his Holiness's agents, in any place 
wherever I shall be, in England, Scotland, Ire- 
land, or in any other territory or kingdom I 
shall come to, and do my utmost to extirpate 
the heretical Protestant's doctrine, and to destroy 
all their pretended powers, regal or otherwise. 
. All of which I, A B, do swear by the 
blessed Trinity and blessed Sacrament, which I 
am now to receive, to perform, and on my part 
to keep inviolably." Jesuit's oath, as quoted 
by Usher. 

The bishops, priests, and Jesuits of the Ro- 
man Catholic Church are, in this country, as 
they themselves declare, on a mission. They 
have no organic connection with our govern- 
ment. They receive from it protection, but have 
no right to interfere with its laws, or in its 
legislative enactments. Their civil relations to 
a foreign power forbid this. If this is not so, 
let them furnish us with proof to the contrary. 
Let us see the bishops coming forward, and 
swearing allegiance to the Constitution of the 
United States ! In the position they now occupy, 
they cannot become American citizens, and ob- 



IOS THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

viously they have no rights based upon American 
citizenship. They constitute themselves a politi- 
cal organization (we speak of the bishops, 
priests, and Jesuits, and not of the common 
people in the Romish communion), that plants 
itself in direct antagonism to our government, 
and avowedly is seeking its overthrow. The 
Bishop of St. Louis says, "Catholicity will one 
day rule America, and religious freedom will be 
at an end." Father Hecker said, in his lecture 
in New York, "In 1900 Rome will have a ma- 
jority here, and be bound to take this country 
and keep it." These gentlemen state their po- 
sition openly. We do not unjustly charge it 
upon them. They avow it themselves. Indeed, 
they go further, and declare that we have no 
rights. In Brownson's Quarterly, January, 1852, 
we read, " Heresy (that is, the Protestant faith) 
and infidelity have not, and never had, and 
never can have, any right, being, as they un- 
deniably are, contrary to the law of God." In 
taking their position of hostility towards our 
government, they plant themselves upon the 
doctrine that we, with our civil freedom, Bibles, 
and faith founded upon God's word, have no 



THE DIVISION OF THE SCHOOL FUND. IO9 

right to exist, and, had they the power, as they 
have repeatedly declared, they would sweep us 
from existence. 

We yield to them the right of existence, and 
of protection under our government. We main- 
tain civil freedom and religious toleration for all 
our citizens. 

But what is the position of these leaders of 
the Romish church in relation to us? 

First. They owe allegiance to a foreign pow- 
er, and have no more organic connection with 
the United States government than though they 
resided in Italy. 

Secondly. They avow that they are here on 
a mission, and that mission is to overthrow our 
government, and destroy our civil freedom and 
religious toleration. 

Thirdly. They declare that we have no right 
to exist, and that it is their duty to take away 
our existence as rapidly as possible. 

With these their declared intentions, they step 
forward and demand that we divide with them 
the school funds, on the ground that they have a 
right to their share of it. Upon what do they 
base this right? All other foundation being 



IIO THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

swept away, the} 7, base it upon the simple fact 
that they pay taxes. 

The Tablet for November 13, 1869, a Roman 
Catholic paper, says, — 

"The Protestant may have state schools or 
godless schools, if he wants them ; but as we 
cannot in conscience send our children to them, 
to be equally free with Protestants, the state 
must either not tax us at all, or give us our pro- 
portion of the money raised, to be expended in 
schools under the control of the church. 

"Protestantism is born of hatred of God, a 
revolt against Christ and his church, and would 
have to abdicate its own nature not to seek to 
deprive Catholics of their religious freedom, and 
to suppress, by aid of the state, the church of 
God. 

:t The very breath of their life, the very reason 
of their being, is hostile to her, because she is 
faithful to Christ, and cherishes his meek and 
lowly spirit. How hollow, then, and hypocriti- 
cal must be all their professions of religious 
liberty ! She represents God on earth ; they 
represent Satan and the world, and how can 
they be otherwise than at enmity with her? 



THE DIVISION OF THE SCHOOL FUND. Ill 

"We are in this country the assertors and 
defenders of the rights of God, and we shall 
assert and defend them by all lawful means to 
the full extent of our power, without their leave 
or license." 

The same paper, of December 25, says, "We 
demand of the state, as our right, either such 
schools as our church will accept, or exemption 
from the school tax. If it will support schools 
by a general tax, we demand that it provide or 
give us our portion of the public funds, and leave 
us to provide schools in which we can educate 
our children in our own religion, under the 
supervision of our own church. 

" We hold education to be a function of the 
church, not of the state; and, in our case, 
we do not, and will not, accept the state as 
educator." 

The Freeman's Journal of November 13, 
says, " Education is not the work of the state 
at all. It belongs to families, and should be 
left to families, and to voluntary associations. 
The school tax is in itself an unjust impo- 
sition." 

As to their taxes, it can, we think, be shown, 



112 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

that not more than one third of the Roman Cath- 
olic population pay any taxes at all ; and what 
is paid is more than returned to them through 
our public institutions, and appropriations made 
to theirs. Besides, if the principle be admitted 
that taxes are to be refunded, because the con- 
science of the tax-payer is violated in their 
appropriation, then the taxes paid by Quakers 
for the support of the army and navy should be 
given back to them, because they are conscien- 
tiously opposed to war. But the government 
says to the Quakers, We need the army and 
navy to sustain the government that affords you 
protection, and therefore we use your taxes to 
aid in their support. Or, here is a wealthy citi- 
zen who has no children, and he is taxed to 
support the schools; while in the next street 
there is a man with six children, who pays no 
taxes, and yet whose children derive every ad- 
vantage from the schools. Suppose that he 
appears before the public authorities, and de- 
clares that his rights are invaded, that his money 
is forcibly taken from him, and that he is com- 
pelled to sustain schools while he has no children 
to educate. Would not the authorities say to 



THE DIVISION OF THE SCHOOL FUND. II3 

him, "Sir, the government that affords you pro- 
tection rests upon the virtue and intelligence of 
the people, and you are taxed to aid in the 
diffusion of this virtue and intelligence. If the 
schools are not sustained, the poor man's chil- 
dren may grow up with characters that will 
endanger your life and property ; and the num- 
ber of this class increasing, they will endanger 
the government." So we say to the Roman 
Catholics, they are taxed to support schools that 
support the government, which government af- 
fords to them toleration and protection. An 
essential element in the instruction given in these 
schools is moral or religious culture, without 
which, free institutions cannot be preserved. 
Should they obtain a portion of the school fund, 
do they propose to establish schools without the 
religious element in them? Hear the Tablet 
for November 20, on this point. 

" Exclude every sectarian exercise, and wholly 
secularize the schools ; let them teach nothing of 
religion, but be confined solely to secular educa- 
tion; what is the result? The system is even 
more objectionable than before. 

"The schools of a nation, next to the domestic 
8 



114 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

fireside, are the foundations of its character and 
greatness. With the poor, in fact, the scholars 
are required to supplant, to a certain degree, the 
influences of the domestic hearth. Hence, it 
has always been a cardinal doctrine, in the econ- 
omy of the Catholic church, to incorporate re- 
ligious instruction with the daily secular teach- 
ings in its schools." 

Indeed ! and shall we yield up this " cardinal 
doctrine " because they are opposed to our appli- 
cation of it? 

What they think of our schools they freely 
tell us. The Tablet for November 29, says, — 

" The system of common schools, as now adopt- 
ed in this country, is in the main an imitation of 
the system decreed by the Convention which sen- 
tenced Louis XVI. to the guillotine, abolished 
Christianity, and declared death an eternal sleep. 
The object of the Convention was, by a system 
of godless schools, to root out religion from the 
French mind, and to train up the French youth 
in absolute ignorance or unbelief in any life be- 
yond this life, and any world that transcends the 
senses. If we adopt and carry out the same 
system, our American youth must grow up thor- 



THE DIVISION OF THE SCHOOL FUND. 11$ 

oughly unbelieving and godless, as the order of 
the Cincinnati Board of Education directly fore- 
shadows. Catholics will do well to be on their 
guard against forming alliances to help them 
get rid of one evil by fastening on the country 
another and infinitely greater evil — the very 
evil the forever infamous Convention sought with 
devilish ingenuity to fasten on France." 

The Freeman's Journal, December n, says, — 
" Let the public school system go to where it 
came from — the devil. We want Christian 
schools, and the state cannot tell us what Chris- 
tianity is." 

It is clear that if we yield to what the Roman- 
ists claim as their "right" in this matter, we 
inflict the greatest possible "wrong" upon our 
nation. Suppose a company of aliens in our 
country, who, in common with citizens, are taxed 
by law on their property, should commence 
building forts and planting batteries, and claim 
as their right a portion of the state funds, to aid 
them in their work, on the ground that they pay 
taxes, and are conscientiously opposed to our 
form of government. Suppose, while they pre- 
sent their claims, that they distinctly declare that 



Il6 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

just as soon as they become strong enough, they 
purpose to open their forts and batteries upon 
our American institutions, and if possible destroy 
them. How would the people or the govern- 
ment receive such an application? Would it not 
be spurned with indignation by all, except trai- 
tors to their country ? It is certainly bad enough 
for us to be exposed, as we now are, to the bane- 
ful inference of Romanism in the republic, 
without Americans lending their aid to help on 
the work of ruin. 

In this connection let me give an extract from 
"Civis," in his "Romanism incompatible with 
Republican Institutions," pages 56-58. After 
speaking of the oppression of Romanism in 
other countries, he says, — 

" But let us see how the case stands with her 
in a free country. Let us inquire if she can so 
far change her nature as in a republic to be- 
come the friend and support of liberty. That 
she can seem to do this, that she can wear such 
a mask as suits herjmrposes, is without question. 
The chamelion can borrow a hue from the sur- 
face upon which it creeps, and so is it with 
Romanism ; but like that insect, her true color is 
cold, stern, gray with iron hue of despotism. 



THE DIVISION OF THE SCHOOL FUND. II7 

The very outward form of the Romish church 
is at variance with all rational liberty; there is 
not a feature in it which has any sympathy 
with free institutions. A religious community of 
Papists is a despotic government in miniature. 
There are here but two grades — the priest and 
his flock ; one to rule, the other to obey ; on this 
side authority, on that unresisting submission. 
He has no account to give them of his charge. 
It is theirs to receive his dictates in silence, his 
to exercise his power as he sees fit. He is ac- 
countable to no one but God, and his superiors. 
Neither have the people a voice in the selection 
of their spiritual guides. These are appointed by 
the higher clergy, and these in turn receive their 
commission from a foreign power, to which they 
have sworn an oath of allegiance. The sub- 
stance of this oath binds them to advance the 
interests of that power, to hold its enemies as 
their enemies, and to vex and destroy heretics 
to the utmost of their ability. And if there is 
any meaning in words, what is the import of 
such an oath, but to undermine and betray every 
government that does not own the authority of 
the Romish see?" 



Il8 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

Whatever legislature in our country surrenders 
a portion of the school funds to the Romanists, 
thus aids in undermining our government and 
digging the grave of our liberties and religion. 
Father Hecker says, " In fifteen years we will 
take this country and build our institutions over 
the grave of Protestantism. " Are there any 
bearing the name of Protestants, who, for per- 
sonal preferment, or political ends, or for any 
purpose whatsoever, are willing to help Father 
Hecker and his allies in this work? 

To every request, or petition, from whatever 
quarter it may come, for a division of the school 
fund, every man treading the soil or breathing 
the air of the American republic, who has a 
spark of patriotism in his soul, will answer, No ! 



Hugo's estimate of romish education. 119 



IX. 



victor Hugo's estimate of romish educa- 
tion. CONCLUSION. 



Every American should ponder the truthful, 
earnest words of the foremost intellect of France, 
the gifted and eloquent Victor Hugo. The fol- 
lowing is an extract from his speech, in relation 
to the effort made, a few years since, by the 
Romish priests, to procure an act of the General 
Assembly of France, restoring to the clergy the 
entire instruction and control of the national 
schools. To understand his position, we should 
state, that before the time of Napoleon Bona- 
parte, every school, even the primaries, was in- 
structed by a priest, and very little was taught 
in them except the Creed and the elements of the 
Papal faith. The emperor changed the system 
entirely, and removed every priest from the 
schools. The Bourbons, at their restoration, 



120 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

restored the priests ; but the last revolution 
set the schools free again. In relation to a 
renewed effort to bring the schools under subjec- 
tion to the church, Victor Hugo said to the 
priests, — 

"Ah, we know you! We know the clerical 
party. It is an old party. This it is, which has 
found for the truth those two marvellous sup- 
porters, ignorance and error ! This it is, which 
forbids to science and genius the going beyond 
the Missal, and which wishes to cloister thought 
in dogmas. Every step which the intelligence 
of Europe has taken, has been in spite of it. 
Its history is written in the history of human 
progress, but it is written on the back of the 
leaf. It is opposed to it all. This it is, which 
caused Prinelli to be scourged for having said 
that the stars would not fall. This it is, which 
put Campanella seven times to the torture, for 
having affirmed that the number of worlds was 
infinite, and for having caught a glimpse at the 
secret of creation. This it is, which persecuted 
Harvey for having proved the circulation of the 
blood. In the name of Jesus, it shut up Galileo. 
In the name of St. Paul, it imprisoned Christo- 



HUGOS ESTIMATE OF ROMISH EDUCATION. 121 

pher Columbus. To discover a law of the 
heavens was an impiety. To find a world was 
a heresy. This it is which anathematized Pas 
cal in the name of religion, Montaigne in the 
name of morality, Moliere in the name of both 
morality and religion. . . . For a long time 
already the human conscience has revolted 
against you, and now demands of you, ' What 
is it that you wish of me?' For a long time 
already you have tried to put a gag upon the 
human intellect. You wish to be the masters of 
education. And there is not a poet, not an au- 
thor, not a philosopher, not a thinker, that you 
accept. All that has been written, found, 
dreamed, deduced, inspired, imagined, invented 
by genius, the treasure of civilization, the ven- 
erable inheritance of generations, the common 
patrimony of knowledge, you reject. 

" There is a book — a book which is, from one 
end to the other, an emanation from above — a 
book which is for the whole world what the 
Koran is for Islamism, what the Vedas are for 
India — a book which contains all human wis- 
dom, illuminated by all divine wisdom — a 
book which the veneration of the people call 



122 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

The Book — the Bible! Well, your censure 
has reached even that. Unheard-of thing ! 
Popes have proscribed the Bible ! How aston- 
ishing to wise spirits, how overpowering to sim- 
ple hearts, to see the finger of Rome placed 
upon the Book of God ! 

"And you claim the liberty of teaching. 
Stop ; be sincere ; let us understand the liberty 
which you claim. It is the liberty of not teach- 
ing. You wish us to give you the people to 
instruct. Very well. Let us see your pupils ! 
Let us see those you have produced. What 
have you done for Italy? What have you done 
for Spain? For centuries you have kept in 
your hands, at your discretion, at your school, 
these two great nations, illustrious among the 
illustrious. What have you done for them? I 
am going to tell you. Thanks to you, Italy, 
whose name no man, who thinks, can any longer 
pronounce without an inexpressible filial emo- 
tion ; Italy, mother of genius and of nations, 
which has spread over the universe all the most 
brilliant marvels of poetry and the arts ; Italy, 
which has taught mankind to read, now knows 
not how to read ! Yes, Italy is, of all the states 



HUGO S ESTIMATE OF ROMISH EDUCATION. 1 23 

of Europe, that where the smallest number of 
natives know how to read. 

"Spain, magnificently endowed; Spain, 
which received from the Romans her first civ- 
ilization, from the Arabs her second civilization, 
from Providence, and in spite of you, a world, 
America ; Spain, thanks to you, to your yoke 
of stupor, which is a yoke of degradation and 
decay, Spain has lost this secret power, which 
it had from the Romans ; this genius of art, 
which it had from the Arabs ; this world, which 
it had from God ; and in exchange for all that 
you have made it lose, it has received from you 
— the Inquisition. 

"The Inquisition, which certain men of the 
party try to-day to re-establish, which has 
burned on the funeral pile millions of men ; the 
Inquisition, which disinterred the dead to burn 
them as heretics ; which declared the children 
of heretics, even to the second generation, infa- 
mous and incapable of any public honors, ex- 
cepting only those who shall have denounced 
their fathers; the Inquisition, which, while I 
speak, still holds in the Papal library the manu- 
scripts of Galileo, sealed under the Papal signet ! 



124 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

These are your masterpieces. This fire, which 
we call Italy, you have extinguished. This 
colossus, that we call Spain, you have under- 
mined. The one in ashes, the other in ruins. 
This is what you have done for two great na- 
tions. What do you wish to do for France? 

" Stop ; you have just come from Rome ! I 
congratulate you. You have had fine success 
there. You come from gagging the Roman peo- 
ple ; now you wish to gag the French people, I 
understand. This attempt is still more fine ; but 
take care ; it is dangerous. France is a lion, 
and is alive ! " 

Shall a Frenchman thus speak in France, and 
we be silent? Shall one, brought up amid 
Papal influences, see so clearly the withering 
power of Romish education, and any person in 
this land of gospel light be blind to it? 

Conclusion. 

Looking into the future, there rise before me, 
visions, of two possible destinies for my coun- 
try. With the moral influence of the Bible 
withdrawn from education, and millions of 
youths growing up with infidel or atheistic 



CONCLUSION. 125 

views, — with a portion of the school funds 
devoted to a system of education antagonistic 
to republicanism, — I see the nation, in the future, 
staggering in its career, losing its native vigor, 
becoming faint, irresolute, with the conviction 
growing among the people that our government 
is indeed an experiment, a problem not yet 
solved. I see the smiles of Heaven withdrawn, 
and the nation struggling to console itself and 
to prosper on its material resources. I see fac- 
tion rising up in cities and states, dividing legis- 
lative bodies, and bringing out the worst passions 
of the human soul. I see Romanism growing 
weak in Europe, and unable longer to thrive in 
nations, that for ages have been rotting under her 
influence, transporting her ammunition, and bat- 
teries, and Jesuitical armies to our soil, and united 
with those who cannot appreciate civil freedom, 
and who despise religion, assailing, year after 
year, the citadels of national liberty and pure 
Christianity. I see those citadels defended by 
millions who have given up the Bible to the foe, 
and have severed the ties that in years past 
bound them to God, and brought to them di- 
vine strength. I see the result of this mighty 



126 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 

contest hanging in doubt, because it is a struggle 
between the enemies of the Bible, and those who 
have betrayed the sacred trust committed to 
them. I see millions in other lands, friends of 
liberty and God, who have looked in the past 
with so much hope upon our nation, as the asy- 
lum for the oppressed, and the stronghold of 
human rights and a pure Christianity, now sad- 
dened by the dark clouds that throw their shad- 
ows upon our prosperity, and foretell the gradual 
fading away of the light of the Book that has 
been " a lamp to our feet and a light to our 
path." 

Another vision rises before me. With the 
principles of the Bible in our system of educa- 
tion, and in the hearts of its professed friends ; 
with a new zeal, awakened by the present con- 
troversy, to infuse, through every medium, 
more of intelligence and virtue into the commu- 
nity ; with the friends of the Bible and the God 
of the Bible, presenting a united front on the 
question before us, I see the American republic 
travelling on in the greatness of its strength ; I 
see the hundreds of millions, who must inevitably 
crowd this continent, happy and prosperous, 



CONCLUSION. 127 

under the best institutions that Gocl ever gave to 
a nation. I see churches and benevolent socie- 
ties multiplying, to diffuse through all classes in 
society the blessings that we have found so pre- 
cious to our souls. I see vessels leaving our 
ports laden with the treasures of the gospel, 
and bearing to all lands, the benefits of the high- 
est civilization and purest religion. I see the 
light streaming from this republic, and resting 
on every island and continent on the globe. I 
see, indeed, in the future, as now, hostile forces 
and great dangers ; but I see the ship of state 
sailing on, dashing aside Romanism and Athe- 
ism, as it has dashed aside Slavery, smiting every 
wave of opposition, outriding every storm, bear- 
ing on safely its precious freight of interests 
and hopes, and presenting a spectacle of beauty, 
power, and success, that excites the admiration 
of the world. 



THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 



THE 



BIBLE AND THE SCHOOL FUND. 

BY REV. RUFUS W. CLARK, D. D. 
i6mo. Paper, 40 cents. Cloth, 75 cents. 



TESTIMONIALS. 

The main arguments in this work were first presented in 
a series of discourses preached by the author in the First 
Reformed Church of Albany, N. Y. From the many testi- 
monials received by him, we are allowed to give the follow- 
ing extracts. 

Lee & Shepard. 



From the Rev. William. B. Sftrague, D. D., of Albany, N. Y. 

Though I had not the privilege of listening to Dr. Clark's 
Discourses on " The Bible in our Public Schools," I have 
read them carefully as they have appeared in the " Evening 
Journal," and have been deeply impressed by the luminous, 
timely, exhaustive discussion that I find in them. Of the 
importance of the subject of which they treat, it is not easy.to 
form too high an estimate ; and I cannot doubt that they are 
destined to a wide circulation, and to act as an enlightening 
and guiding power on many minds in reference to one of the 
great moral questions of the day. 

Albany, January 17, 1870. 



From the Rev. Andrew P. Peabody, D. Z?., LL. D., of 
Harvard College. 

My Dear Sir : I duly received your Sermons, and I 
want to express my unqualified acquiescence in your line of 
argument and tone of thought and feeling, and my earnest 
sympathy with you in what seems to me a cause of prime 
importance in its civil, no less than its religious aspects. 
. . . Your sermons are admirable for what there is not 
in them, as well as for what they contain. They have no 
arguments of limited scope or pertinency ; none the force of 
which depends on the admission of aught that is disputable 
among Protestant Christians. 

We are, it seems to me, approaching a great religious 
crisis. There is a tendency to the creation and consolida- 
tion of three parties in the religious world, — believers in 
the authority of the Bible ; believers in ecclesiastical tradi- 
tion and authority as parallel with, or paramount to, the 
Bible ; and believers in their own (so-called) intuitions. 
The friends and adherents of the Bible ought to draw more 
closely together, if they would be successful early (as, if God 
be true, they must be ultimately), in this tripartite war. They 
waste a great deal of ammunition against one another which 
might be used with good purpose, as in these sermons of 
yours gospel ammunition is used against the common enemy. 

Cambridge, January 13, 1870. 

From the Rev. Isaac Ferris, D. D., LL. D., Chancellor of 
the New York University. 

My Dear Dr. Clark : I have read with interest your 
Discourses on the present absorbing subject of the Bible in 
our Public Schools, and am glad that at the capital, the seat 
of legislation of our State, such a faithful testimony has been 
given. Your view is clear, comprehensive, and satisfactory, 
and I trust that you will hear good results from its circula 
tion. 

New York, January 18, 1870. 



From the Hon. Ira Harris, LL. D., etc., Professor in the 
Law School of Albany, and late United States Senator. 

Albany, January 24, 1870. 

Dear Sir: I desire to thank you, as I do most heartily, 
for the great service you have rendered the cause of true 
religion and patriotism by your Discourses on " The Bible 
in our Public Schools." I have read them with great inter- 
est. The subject itself is of momentous importance, and 
you have discussed it in a manner worthy of its importance. 
No candid man can read your argument without feeling, as 
perhaps he had not felt before, how deeply the vital inter- 
ests of our country are involved in the question. 

I am rejoiced to learn that there is a prospect that these 
noble discourses are to be given to the public in a more 
convenient and permanent form. I wish every Christian 
patriot in the land could read them. 

Yours, with esteem, 

Ira Harris. 



From Peter B. Simons, Esq., President of the Yotmg 
Men's Christian Association of Philadelphia. 

. . . The arguments are not only convincing, but they 
are couched in such language that the dullest mind can 
comprehend them, and feel their power, if they have one 
spark of love for their God and country. I feel satisfied 
that in these papers you have touched a chord that must 
vibrate in every true American heart, and arouse them to the 
startling fact, that the solution of this great problem must 
be cowardly submission to Rome and its dogmas, or manly 
resistance for God's own light and liberty. 



NOTICES. 

From the New York Observer. 

Dr. Clark has fairly met the question of excluding the 
Bible, showing that it is unwise, and fatal to the ends of 
education, and he demonstrates the folly of dividing the 
funds. His Sermons constitute an impregnable argument in 
favor of the present common school system, and they pre- 
sent the subject in such a form as to command popular 
attention. We wish that they might be circulated, by the 
hundreds of thousands, over the State and country. 

From the Albany Evening Journal. 

Dr. Clark would not consent to surrender the Bible in 
any event, even though such concession would settle the 
entire school controversy. He places himself firmly upon 
the common school system as it exists, with its support of a 
pure morality drawn from the Bible, its independence of 
sectarian influences and dictation, its entire freedom, and its 
inviolable school fund. These positions he maintains with 
that forcible statement and logical consistency, which is one 
of his distinguishing characteristics. 



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\ 



! THE SCHOOL FUND. 



The Question of the Hour: 



THE BIBLE 



AND 



BY 



RUFITS W. CLARK, D. D. 




BOSTON: 
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GATES WIDE OPEN; 

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J HECKMAN 

BINDERV INC. 

^ JAN 84 







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^S^ N- MANCHESTER, 
^ INDIANA 46962 






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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




